Eventually, ARRI (a 100 year-old film company) turned around and what they've made obliterated almost everything from film space RED made. They still have space, but not in the market segment they have entered at first.
Following the previous example, the iPhone pretty much dominated the smart phone market when it carved it out, but now iOS is at about 16% of the global marketshare.
Who cares about market share?
Apple's iPhone strategy allowed them several controversial moves, which might have caused massive fines if enacted with larger marketshare. E.g. restricting browser engines on iOS vs. simply bundling browser with Windows in 90's/early 00's (I don't remember / can't find now info / date of the ruling now).
Sony (Tesla) snuck in and have cornered the market on mirrorless (particularly full frame) over the last 5 years and now the big incumbents are launching their responses (Canon tomorrow actually).
Sony are definitely here to stay, they have enough lead time and mind share to back up their techincal offerings, I'd imagine Tesla will be too, even as the big players join the market.
I think they imagined themselves too much like Apple and it's attempts at automating it's production of the Mac. However, they forgot that by this point Apple/SJ had already figured out a lot of how to do assembly of computers quickly and automating a good process is much easier than figuring out a process that'll be automated.
Prior to this automation everything was done semi-manually for Model S and Model X, with huge delays, so automating whatever they had was not the next logical step. It was short sighted of them to go to automation first and it's frankly causing unneeded delays to delivering the Model 3s and volatility in the market.
They basically have a tent erected in the Nevada desert, next to their stalled plant, where they are hand-assembling cars now, which is causing all kinds of quality issues [1].
Honestly, the buyout from VW would have solved this issue because VW knows how to build cars at scale [2]. The fact they shot this down is exactly that - hubris - and now they're burning through the last of their cash reserves on their way to bankruptcy.
[1] https://jalopnik.com/bumper-falls-off-brand-new-tesla-model-...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-bravado-private-doubts-h...
Or had they done it the right way like BMW did with the i3.
Source:
BMW i3 Teardown: An Electronics Masterpiece: http://www.techinsights.com/teardown.com/bmw-i3-teardown-ele...
Tearing Down the Model T of Our Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDr4L6BzpP8
(both are about the same teardown by Munro & Associates)
The i3 one might be technically interesting, but the car was never intended to be produced in volume so it's just a nice niche thing.
It's a proof of concept, and a way to test the market before really committing to sustained production of electric cars. BMW could produce other electric cars in volume if they decide the market is viable.
In the bigger scheme of things McLaren sell roughly as many cars as BMW sell i3s, i.e. a rounding error in global auto sales.
McLaren got there first in making carbon fibre tub a road going reality, for the super-rich, just as they did on the track in the world of F1 almost four decades ago.
The i3 costs about as much as the brakes on a McLaren. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just an odd comparison to make.
If you're looking for a way to attenuate somebody's enthusiasm about BMW's amazing, relatively cheap carbon fiber process, it's that BMW is publicly downplaying its importance in favor of aluminum. That's either about production costs or about complicated problems of meeting passenger car safety standards with carbon fiber, depending on who you talk to...
> McLaren got there first in making carbon fibre tub a road going reality
The i3 is actually a carbon fiber body-on-frame design relying on aluminum. It's wild, but definitely not something McLaren would want to use for a 700-hp sports car.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_i3#Marketing_and_sales [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nargessbanks/2018/05/29/mclaren...
Meanwhile, every review about the Model 3 (LR and Performance) shows that the 3 series and the M3 don't appeal much. And the Model Y will be shown in a few months to compete head to head with the BMW X3 and X5 in a few months.
A better comparison might be Toyota, though, when it comes to innovating on manufacturing. One of the things you'd really want to hear from Tesla is why a given part of the assembly line differs from established best practices, and that sort of explanation is something you never really hear from them. You do hear things like "oh, yeah, we just got rid of that stupid, fantastically expensive automatic conveyor belt system and replaced it with something simpler," and if you read the histories you know that Toyota and others retreated from systems similar to that in years past for similar reasons.
Maybe if Tesla fails (or succeeds wildly, has a IPO and many people cash out and take jobs at more established car makers) we'll get to hear the stories behind these sorts of decisions.
However, the issues that Tesla has with production aren't because their cars are electric. It's because they are bad at building cars compared to GM, Ford, Toyota, VW, etc.
Toyota could be making a lot of Model S's per week and Tesla would struggle to produce 10k Prius's a week.
Then, why don't they? It's a lucrative segment that creates lots of goodwill and free publicity.
They don't because they can't. Everyone assumes automakers will easily catch up to the lead that Tesla holds. I don't think it's all that easy.
Tesla has at least a six year lead on everyone else. The Model S came out in 2012, established brands are coming out with S competitors in 2018-2020. It will take time for them to scale production so that mid-range segments are profitable. Don't expect to see model 3 competitors in the next five years (no prototypes, so design hasn't even started).
The single exception is Renault-Nissan. They have the know-how and are already in the market in relevant numbers.
Because the customers won't turn up, they aren't turning up for the bolt either. And say whatever about external looks, I don't believe that's why customers aren't turning up. It's the futuristic hype of Tesla and Elon musk, which is why he must harp on about autonomous cars which can go coast to coast in summon mode, or taking over manufacturing with alien dreadnaught. It is all a hype factory to keep up the high tech image, while the truth remains far from that image.
Also, the Chevy Bolt is a model 3 competitor and you can buy one today.
This isn't really accurate. Nissan and GM both had electric cars 20 years ago. And Tesla loses billions of dollars every year so they've hardly proven anything to be economically viable. The reason electric cars are coming now is because battery technology has gotten to the point of them being viable cars albeit with a slightly premium cost.
If anything it seems to be Ford and Chrysler doing the bare minimum. They offer EV versions of their cars, but they're not common and not pushed very heavily. At least GM has an all-electric model that stands on its own and isn't just an EV variant of another model (it's not "the Chevy Bolt EV", it's just "the Chevy Bolt" because there is no "Chevy Bolt ICE".) GM's electric offering was built from the ground up to be an electric car, and has won tons of awards for actually being a good car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2ogGZXmepY
>GM's electric offering was built from the ground up to be an electric car, and has won tons of awards for actually being a good car.
The Bolt actually used many of the Chevy Sonic hardware/parts so I would hardly call it being built from the ground up. I mean, they look pretty much the same. It's like the Tesla roadster 1.0 which used Lotus parts.
According to GM, the Bolt shares no components of the Sonic.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/2017-chevrolet-bolt-ev-pho...
>all-new chassis called BEV II, which isn’t related to the Gamma platform on the Sonic hatchback. Despite the Bolt’s compact footprint, it’s longer than the Sonic by 5.0 inches, wider by 1.2 inches, higher by 3.1 inches, and has a 3.0-inch-longer wheelbase
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1106137_chevy-bolt-ev-n...
>GM says the Chevy Bolt EV does not share any elements of those vehicles' small-car architecture, which was developed by its Korean small-car team.
>"There are no Bolt EV parts tied to the G2 architecture"
Sounds pretty "ground up" to me.
Surely Tesla has accelerated demand a bit ... but I would view this as a very natural and obvious evolution of an industry, and when we take the big picture view it'll be seen as frankly a long shift anyhow, spanning many decades.
The truth is that German car companies made incredible sales despite the Diesel scandal, more than Tesla can ever dream of. And now that EV demand is rapidly increasing, politics are changing and infrastructure is growing, they will begin to massively take advantage of the situation that Tesla created for them.
When big new opportunities like this arise, it is often the small players that do well. If it wasn't the case, the technology industry would have been dominated by incumbents like IBM, instead of upstarts like Microsoft and Apple.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Nazi-War-Machine-Blitzkrieg/dp...
Where do they get money from
a: not quietly, not at all b: the industry was wisely and patiently waiting. no need to spend capital in a serious way on the problem if someone else (tesla) is willing to take the chance. the industry will quite easily wipe the floor with tesla when market is ripe.
I still believe electric is going nowhere and if an alternative fuel surpasses petrol in my lifetime it will be hydrogen. we won't know for at least a decade so watch this space ...
It won't be easy.
1. the industry has a chain of dealers that will have to sell EVs alongside gas cars - how can they say that the gasoline cars are the cars of the past (Tesla's stance) when they have to sell gas cars, too? Thus the dealers will not sell EVs that strongly by principle. "Yeah, the other 90% of the cars on this lot are dead as history. You'll do well not to buy one of those." Traditional dealers will never say that to their customers. But Elon has been giving that message to Tesla customers for a decade and EV shoppers are listening.
2. Where are they getting their batteries from? Tesla already has the battery factory. Every other company is going to have to have some kind of battery deal with LG or Panasonic or whoever, and thus no vertical integration, like Tesla already has.
3. How is "the industry" going to sell cross-country travel? Buying a Tesla, you have access to a world-wide charging network that is super-quick to charge the cars, and incredibly expansive. "the industry" cannot just whip a charging network up, out of thin air.
4. Tesla has re-invented _the car_, not just electric vehicles. Look at the Model 3 dashboard. It stands out! "the industry" is still building EVs in their existing factories, with existing interiors and exteriors, that look and feel like gas cars but with an EV powertrain. There are literally tens of brands that look and feel similar to each other, and only one car brand - Tesla - that is actually unique. You think folks are not going to notice that? Tesla is not on the same planet, design and feel wise, as the other carmakers, which all exist in the same small, close-minded space. Customers are noticing that.
I completely agree but for a completely different reason: all of Tesla's models have a very long way to go to catch up to the established carmakers, hell look at the latest: the model 3. Even if we ignore the build quality issues that thing's lack of a dashboard is appalling usability-wise.
I don't know anyone who regretted buying an electric vehicle (hybrids, mostly). The general consensus in my social circle is that once you go electric you don't want to go back. It is, in terms of user experience, a much much better solution than internal combustion engines.
I hold the complete opposite view: The transportation future is electric.
Now that CA has a new eco-industrial complex going (carpool sticker only valid for 3 years, for no good reason), there are more non-tesla performant hybrids available and they are really really good.
Everyone that believes electric is the future has a very, very limited view of how cars (and trucks) are actually used today. Sure, it may satisfy 50% of the market but that's not enough to displace gas vehicles. Whereas hydrogen can actually displace them.
I also believe the transportation future is electric, but not batteries.
Tesla quietly crept around and made electric cars cool and economically viable while the industry had it's backs turned. They've certainly succeeded in becoming a reputable brand, everyone's at least heard of them. It remains to be seen whether they'll continue to be viable once the incumbents bring into play their ability to write fat checks and spin up production facilities without teething issues at every turn. The big players in the car industry aren't ignoring EVs anymore.
Personally, my money is on GM dominating the market. Maybe there's a place for Tesla and some of the later players in the high end.