When will Tesla face the "Innovators Dilemma"? We ask James Douma.

Tesla is currently a market disruptor, but at what point does Tesla face the "Innovator's Dilemma". James Douma @jimmy_d explains that in theory companies should be continually innovating in order to stay relevant, however well run companies generally don't do that. James refers to Clayton M. Christensen's book the "Innovator's Dilemma" which concludes that ultimately companies are not incentivized to disrupt themselves, and therefore tend to get disrupted from the outside.

James is an engineer with a physics background. He has been working on neural nets and artificial intelligence since 2007 and has been featured on a number of Tesla and AI related podcasts.


This is a clip from Tesla Motors Club Podcast #37. The full podcast video is available here:

Tesla FSD Beta V11, Powerwall, Neuralink, & AI w/ James Douma | Tesla Motors Club Podcast #37

We are joined by special guest James Douma to discuss @TeslaMotors' release of FSD Beta V11 (specifically V11.3), Powerwall now available without requiring S...

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[voyager]

He's so right. Don't get me wrong, Tesla's significance in getting the electric car revolution going cannot be overstated. It is HUGE.
But having said that, if you really look at what Teslas are, then they are still the cars as we have known them for decades, only
with the ICE dumped for an electric motor. The fact that Musk hit a snag with getting self-driving working, should say enough.

 

[voyager]

All AV developers ought to ask themselves what's depicted below...

 

[zecar]

.Choosing the Cybertruck design shows that Tesla is not following their mission.

Tesla's primary risk is not the innovator's dilemma. It's Musk making dumb vehicle choices and expecting Tesla owners to be continuely interested in either old or freaky looking vehicles. Manufacturing is ready to rock and roll. Software is first rate. Musk is past his peak.

 

[father_of_6]

All AV developers ought to ask themselves what's depicted below...

A bunch of random characters?

 

[voyager]

A bunch of random characters?

Oops... and now I forgot what that was about... Sorry.

 

[hooty]

Musk’s wilful ignorance on LIDAR makes the case

 

[father_of_6]

Musk’s wilful ignorance on LIDAR makes the case

I doubt he's ignorant to the value of LiDAR, but he's also not ignorant to the current cost. It doesn't fit his business model, so he rejected it.

I recall reading about $250 LiDAR being just around the corner... not sure what it currently costs though.

I suspect that when cheap LiDAR is here, Tesla will be using it... and Elon will have some story about why his decision to switch to LiDAR makes sense now (but it won't mention cost).

 

[hooty]

I doubt he's ignorant to the value of LiDAR, but he's also not ignorant to the current cost. It doesn't fit his business model, so he rejected it.

I recall reading about $250 LiDAR being just around the corner... not sure what it currently costs though.

I suspect that when cheap LiDAR is here, Tesla will be using it... and Elon will have some story about why his decision to switch to LiDAR makes sense now (but it won't mention cost).

Polestar & XPeng have incorporated it into their cars

 

[KenC]

Incumbent ICE OEMs are still being disrupted. When all of this musical chairs ends, some of these ICE OEMs are going to be gone.

We probably don't have to consider Tesla being disrupted for a while. They are constantly innovating in manufacturing with Gigapress being the latest example. They are constantly improving batteries. They are constantly trying to improve self-driving. They are constantly trying to better control their whole supply chain from raw materials to delivery. Who else does that? The biggest risk at the moment aren't incumbents, but outsiders, like the Chinese mfrs and the Koreans. Then again, what's their advantage? Low-cost labor? Tesla accesses that as well. Copying Tesla's innovations? Well, they're Tesla, so they don't have to copy themselves.

I see Tesla's competition the same way I see Apple's competition, mostly coming from China and Korea. Try as they might, Apple has yet to be disrupted by these competitors, and they are far further down the innovation curve than Tesla. I wouldn't worry about Tesla so much. I'm far more worried about the survival of the incumbent OEMs as this EV transition takes place over the next decade. When one of these giants fails, there'll be a big brouhaha over "too big to fail", and the question is, will the US taxpayer have to bail one or both of these incumbents out. I hope not.