I posted this over on GM-Volt.com yesterday, but figured I might as well do so here as well...
The last 24 hours strike me as a pivotal event in car manufacturing. Tesla just pulled off an Apple / Starbucks move. They moved from being a manufacturer of "cars" to a manufacturer of "cool". This is actually, IMO, MORE significant than the product itself and should NOT be underestimated.
Apple did it and Starbucks did it. They both took a product that had been sold for quite a while and somehow, almost magically, made those products "cool". Indeed, I am almost more impressed with Starbucks. My parents drank coffee, but I grew up drinking sodas and did so into my adulthood. My kids were the same. The classic "coffee shop" was dead....and then "Starbucks" suddenly made it COOL to drink COFFEE of all things.
Apple did the same thing. I remember when one of our kids went off to college I told him how he should spend his money on a PC, and a Mac was too expensive for what you got, etc. The response: "You don't want to be the only kid sitting in the classroom w/o a Mac"...it wasn't about the product, but the image!
We can talk Bolt EV this, Volt that, BMW i3 the other, etc, but at the end of the day, they won't be a "Tesla" to so many folks...and people will say "I don't want to be the only kid w/o a Tesla".
This will surely spur adoption of EVs in general, but for many it will be the desirable badge that will win out over all. Dang, the cool kids always win!
The last 24 hours strike me as a pivotal event in car manufacturing. Tesla just pulled off an Apple / Starbucks move. They moved from being a manufacturer of "cars" to a manufacturer of "cool". This is actually, IMO, MORE significant than the product itself and should NOT be underestimated.
Apple did it and Starbucks did it. They both took a product that had been sold for quite a while and somehow, almost magically, made those products "cool". Indeed, I am almost more impressed with Starbucks. My parents drank coffee, but I grew up drinking sodas and did so into my adulthood. My kids were the same. The classic "coffee shop" was dead....and then "Starbucks" suddenly made it COOL to drink COFFEE of all things.
Apple did the same thing. I remember when one of our kids went off to college I told him how he should spend his money on a PC, and a Mac was too expensive for what you got, etc. The response: "You don't want to be the only kid sitting in the classroom w/o a Mac"...it wasn't about the product, but the image!
We can talk Bolt EV this, Volt that, BMW i3 the other, etc, but at the end of the day, they won't be a "Tesla" to so many folks...and people will say "I don't want to be the only kid w/o a Tesla".
This will surely spur adoption of EVs in general, but for many it will be the desirable badge that will win out over all. Dang, the cool kids always win!
