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Does anyone think this design change to the front might enable the bumper to be thermo formed or vacuum formed instead of requiring it to be injection molded? That could create some significant savings.

The Problem with Experts - Why Uber, Tesla and the iPhone are Disruptive Innovations This might be helpful, I try to explain why the supercharger network is one example of disruptive innovation for Tesla. They have others as well. Just imagine being a traditional car company and the...

I think the boring hats and flamethrowers help show the market how easily Musk's companies can raise money. I know it is isn't really serious money from Tesla's point of view but it makes the point. It's ridiculous for people to think Tesla is going to have problems raising money when more is...

If the non-Tesla manufacturers are able to get a reasonable highspeed CCS network running, how will they stop slower charging cars like the Bolt/Ampera from clogging up spots. Would they have complex billing that tries to deal with time and energy?

Well that's good news! It's then a reasonable option in places that will have a good CSS charging network

According to Electrek's article it is limited to 50kW. Hopefully it's wrong, because it's a really bad design tradeoff that will hurt their EV efforts going forward.

Unfortunately the iPace only has 50kW fast charging and a not very useful fast charging network. It's a nice but expensive secondary car or city car.

Malcolm Gladwell's podcast covers Toyota's unintended acceleration controversy. If you haven't listened to it, then you can find it here. It talks about Consumer Reports recommendations and how fundamentally dangerous they are. You just can't trust CR when it relates to safety whether its...

I'm not sure it matters yet. Installations should be done strategically at this point until they have lots of batteries being produced. The goal is to get producing batteries quickly and then consume them in the most logical way.

Yes, as well Supercharger pricing allows Tesla to build Superchargers in cities to create sales for people without the ability to charge at home (people who park on the street or in parking garages). As well it paves the way to allowing other car manufacturers to buy their way into the...

Here is a blog post I wrote comparing Teslas Supercharger network to Costco's Business strategy - Costco's business strategy and Tesla's Supercharger network

I'm always surprised when most people's business instincts are to copy instead of trying to differentiate.

I wrote up my thoughts on how Costco's business model and the Supercharger network are related. Costco's business strategy and Tesla's Supercharger network

Sell when Elon is on the rocket to Mars!

From a discussion on page 54-55. The point being made is that Tesla's Supercharger business model is analogous to Costco's business model and it will be tough for others to compete by just building a charging network or adding chargers to gas stations.

From a search for Costco's business model: Costco's business model is smarter than you think Why Costco's business model is so great Costco: Breaking all the retail rules Fascinating facts about Costco

I meant the luck was that many of the values and advantages from the postal model mapped well to the streaming model.

Costco's markups are half of Walmart. It's designed to break even. Profit comes from memberships. They are different business strategies, that's the point I'm making. Tesla can employ a break even operating strategy for superchargers like Costco because of an upfront access fee embedded in...

:) your right, not the most exciting example. The interesting thing with Musk is he designs a product to create the demand for the network he wants to create e.g. Superchargers, inexpensive batteries, autonomous car sharing. He needs alot of rocket launches to bring the cost down to make the...

It's different because it is Costco's strategy. I doubt in Tesla strategy meetings they say lets breakeven and ZEV credits will be our profit. Costco chooses their markup on items, so they run lean and set there markup to closely match their overhead and then there profit tracks to their...

Sure, its a subset concept of disruption theory (but not limited to low cost entry). Basically you look at a future network change that is coming e.g. Charging vs. gas stations, packet switched data on mobile networks vs. circuit switched (circa 2002), High speed mobile data (3G) vs low speed...

Most will go out of business. There will just be a huge oversupply of gas stations + convenience stores.

I think we agree. I'm looking at gas station as a business, while your looking at it more as a piece of real estate. The only reason gas is a lost leader for convenience goods is that with multiple gas stations close together people are sensitive to gas prices and less sensitive to the high...

Yes some independent gas stations will decide to turn into a convenience store since the building already exists and may add superchargers. They will suffer though because the car throughput won't be the same as a gas station. Obviously if they have a unique location advantage they might...

The business plan won't work. The overhead of a gas station is too high and the regular public (future Tesla owners) are very sensitive to fuel prices, as well they will be fully aware of what they pay for electricity at home. It won't be okay to charge significantly more than what Tesla...

I can't claim to be an expert on it but I've heard and read that many times. Here is an example article: What do Membership Fees Mean to Costco? I can't comment on the accuracy of the article but their are many articles all saying the same thing about their business model. Its a differentiating...

Home charging is certainly part of it and it takes the largest bite out of gas station use, but the existence of the supercharger network is what will get people to buy an EV over an ICE in massive amounts as the price of EV's come down. It's the difference between buying a city car with a...

Yep, take a look at it from a Gas Station perspective and it becomes easy to see. Different business model - Tesla isn't selling markup on the energy but a flat fee access to the system (embedded in the car purchase) that they are happy to open up to other manufacturers. The analogy I see here...

Tesla is definitely a Disruptive Innovation and you have it right. An easier way to think of it is that the Supercharger network is disruptive to Gas Stations. They are fundamentally cheaper (no employees, no land rent or ownership, no fuel delivery cost, fundamental cheaper fuel) the downside...