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Originally Posted by detltu
Tesla has already revolutionized the car industry. Everyone has reacted to his vehicles and he has already lasted much longer than many expected. I would be shocked if they completely fold. That being said I will also be shocked if he actually makes his production target with any sort of quality over the next few years. As others have mentioned Tesla already has significant quality issues with the expensive cars. Building a cheaper and higher volume model is only going to magnify those problems.
The apple comparison is on point. There are plenty of people who are who are in love with the brand and will put up with a lot to have a part of that. I think once the model 3s start making it into the hands of people who truly rely on their cars as their only form of transportation, some of the shine will wear off if the quality issues rear their ugly heads. We will see. Hopefully he values quality over the production goals. I don't think he can have both.
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I agree with most of this.
When I was growing up, electric vehicles were a "pie in the sky" concept, a couple manufacturers tried to initiate this, but they fell flat on their face.
To start up an entire automotive company, as an EV company, and actually get cars out on the road that are practical, is an absolutely monumental feat IMO. How often do we see a brand new manufacturer start up with any kind of production capability? It's almost unheard of. The most we usually see is some shop hand-crafting a couple cars a year or something like that, not a full-scale production. And the cars are practical. This doesn't mean they are for everyone, as a Mercedes S65 isn't for everyone, but these Tesla EVs can be daily driven, have enough range to work for most trips, can be recharged in many locations, have gotten out of the "science fiction" stage and landed squarely in the "reality" stage. That, in my opinion, is simply amazing. The best part is that the car doesn't care what kind of fuel is used at the power plant, whether it's coal, or natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, tides, solar, fusion, fission, etc. A short aside about natural gas, it's one of the fastest growing sources due to how scale-able it is, how little infrastructure it needs, and how it's surpassed 65% efficiency. You cut out having to ship fuel around everywhere to holding takes with vehicles that in turn use fuel and that required fuel to build in the first place. Delivered to your EV without all the energy-wasting middle-men required to refine and transport gasoline all over the country, it's far more efficient and easier to control the efficiency/pollutants. All of these reasons are why it's a far better idea than hydrogen or any other alternative source.
Undoubtedly, we'll still see gas engines for years, we'll see hybrids more and more (especially in the sports-car world, where you can recover braking energy to slingshot out of turns), but we'll also see a gradual shift to EVs. Battery technology in the development phase right now will be offering many times more storage capacity than the best that Tesla currently offers, around 15 years down the road.
Naysayers always seem to try and throw up some kind of argument that the proponents are going to "flip" some giant switch somewhere in 2020 and all of a sudden the government is going to come and confiscate your gas engines and there will be infrastructure. The thing about electric is that there already IS infrastructure (as opposed to hydrogen) and it will continue to get upgraded through the years as more and more EVs are built, there will not be some date where all of a sudden everything is EV, it will just be a gradual change that is likely to not finish through any of our lifetimes, due to many industries and applications where it will take significant further technology and development.
I think a lot of it also has to do with fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of something different. Who knows what the future holds exactly, maybe we'll be able to download new maps to increase performance, or have some kind of safe over-charge function, or whatever, we really don't know, but I think this lack of information/knowledge really scares some people and makes them hold on more tightly to what they know.
Tesla will most likely survive, but they are facing a big challenge. They have made practical EVs reality, but they are balancing spreading themselves too thin (to generate investment revenue) with meeting their production goals for what they have agreed to. Elon has his hands in so many things that he can likely shift enough around to keep Tesla on a lifeline, but the delivery of the model 3 needs to happen before we see too many of these truck, roadster and other Tesla ideas.
Tesla is following the same basic steps that any technology manufacturer has followed bringing new technology to the market place. The idea that they are not turning a profit on a specific line at a certain time is not new, it's what has brought you all sort of technological gifts from incorporated companies, but it's subject to that same playing field that can collapse if you spread yourself too thin and can't follow through with your production.