Well damn, I had a strong feeling last night when going to sleep that we were going to have a good day today as people realized NJ didn't mean anything, and I didn't act on it. Oh well.
Actually, this is quite interesting. This statement really provides a window into the minds of the dealers, I think.
First, it reeks of jealousy - "it's not fair, why can't WE sell the best car from the hottest brand!"
But second, and perhaps more importantly - it speaks to the moat which Tesla has. Now, I don't actually believe that Tesla has a significant technological advantage. At the end of the day an EV is a very simple thing to make, much much simpler than a gas car, and I guarantee that the auto companies, if they actually bothered to put effort into it, could make a competitive EV to Tesla. It's not like nobody else can use 18650s, and everyone uses the same type of motor anyway, and they could write an internet-updating car OS, and they can make good interiors, etc. However, the problem is that their minds are in the wrong place, and most of them don't actually want to put effort into making an attractive EV - but this is not insurmountable. So where is Tesla's moat, if not in technology?
I think the moat evidenced by this guy's comment is in the minds of the consumer. He speaks of "Tesla cars" as if they're an actual thing, a different thing which only Tesla can make...and he's right. Tesla is the only company capable of making Tesla cars. Why does this matter though? Because Tesla is the de facto brand of the future. Tesla is *the* EV maker. Tesla is cool, they have first mover advantage, and people who know they exist identify them inextricably with EVs. Everyone who wants an electric car wants a Tesla. Tesla is the iPod, anything else which comes out from a bigger, established company is the Zune. Tesla won this brand battle, they did so in plain view of everyone, they did so while being written off, after announcing their intentions publicly many times, and now the traditional portion of the industry doesn't know what to do about it."
@FANGO
To your first point, as soon as Tesla gives away a franchise then the US auto dealer associations have got their hooks into Tesla. Right now they cannot claim to have done a single thing to earn a piece of Tesla's action. They never (intentionally) marketed Tesla and they never put a penny of investment into Tesla new vehicle inventory.
To your second point. Dealers are way ahead of Big Auto execs in identifying the danger from Tesla. If Big Auto operated their own sales and customer interactions they would be in possession of the same warning signals. Yes the brand dominance of Tesla, but also the technological advantage.
What Tesla has done technologically, is definitely beyond the capabilities in evidence across of Big Auto. The motor and control system is not the same as any other EV on the road. Every other EV on the road is using some variety of permanent magnet DC brushless system because the control systems for an infinitely variable speed and torque AC Induction system with the efficiencies achieved by Tesla are at the limit of modern power engineering. The twin AC induction system for the Model X is on another level beyond that.
As for batteries, Tesla has a battery that exists in a 5 star safety approved vehicle at approaching double the energy density and approaching half the cost per KWh achieved by any other EV on the road. It is very, very difficult to do this owing to the fact that as energy densities go up, so does the potential for something to go catastrophically wrong. Unlike a tank of gasoline that contains a preponderance of fuel and a fraction of the amount of air to burn that fuel completely, a charged battery is effectively a mixture of fuel and all of the oxidiser required to burn it. The higher the energy density the greater the propensity for trouble. Tesla has combatted this with, again, a masterpiece of engineering with layer after layer of safety systems, control systems, thermal management and fault-tolerance. It is very difficult for any cell in a Tesla pack to experience failure and very difficult indeed for the failure of one cell to spread to the next, and more difficult still for one failed module of cells to negatively affect additional modules, even following the direct intrusion of a metal object that would have exposed the contents of a gasoline tank to all the oxidiser in the world. This is a level of engineering that is significantly beyond that which has been shown to exist in Big Auto, which is why Tesla has not only the safest and longest range EV with performance approaching that of significantly more expensive supercars. The fact that Tesla now has the confidence both technologically and in terms of projected demand for its products to compound its first mover advantage by setting out to double the worlds battery supply capacity under its own control is no small hint either. To answer your point directly - even if there was some way around Tesla's safety and thermal management patents, just putting what is now 260Wh/Kh 18650s in a vehicle is not on the cards as a simple method of competing with Tesla. That is before we get into Tesla's patents for hybrid metal-air.
The fully firmware driven car - from drivetrain characteristics, to suspension, to climate control, to security, infotainment, navigation, peer-to-peer communication, over the air diagnostics and servicing, predictive servicing alerts, back to base SOS, even running apps for goodness sake, is an accomplishment on a par with iOS - Tesla has built its own Linux Kernel "tOS" to run the car. The fact that Tesla can run an iOS emulator to run iOS apps if it felt like it (on top of the operating system of the car) is Silicon Valley vs Detroit level of streets ahead. Apparently SAP was not good enough to build Tesla's back-office systems behind its web site, engineering, accounts and CRM so Tesla built its own ERP system. Big Auto is in a different century (a previous one) when it comes to IT capability. Building that kind of strength behind a low cost sensor suite from Mobileye promises to deliver exactly what Musk has been talking about: The world's first commercial, significantly autonomous vehicle, leapfrogging anything we have seen to date with park assist, adaptive cruise, lane change avoidance and so on.
The brand advantage that Tesla enjoys is not built on Superbowl ads (obviously) or any other kind of ephemeral marketing ploy. It is the result of unbelievable engineering to create an unbelievable product as well as unbelievable innovations in business model and customer care. Simple example: Not for profit servicing, a business innovation that is aligned to customer satisfaction and building reliable vehicles. End result - more demand at better margins and a cultural advantage over Big Auto to drive vehicle innovation and not design compromise as a profit center.
There is almost nothing that I can point to that has not been thought out from the ground up as the best way to do something rather than some iteration or tradition of the old way of doing things.
