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The imitators always catch up to the innovators. Eventually. And everyone downplays the innovation, as if it were just part of some natural evolution of things.

But some people know the truth: That it could have easily been another 50 or 100 or 200 years before some OTHER innovator came along to lead the pack along.

The story is timeless.

You mean like Apple and the iPhone? Or the light-bulb before Edison made them commercially successful?

"Imitating" something in a way that is commercially successful to the point where the technology gains widespread adoption when before it had only niche adoption is innovation in itself.

Tesla is building the early smartphones. Someone else is going to build the iPhone and yet someone else will build the hordes of HTCs and the Samsungs running Android.

That it could have easily been another 50 or 100 or 200 years before some OTHER innovator came along to lead the pack along

Give the fact that Musk didn't start Tesla I don't really understand this comment. Musk has done a great deal to further electric vehicle adoption, but it's not like it's he's the only person in the industry. It obviously wouldn't have taken another 50 years.

Especially since Tesla's success is one of the things stemming further EV incentives.

If Tesla didn't exist, I bet traditional motor companies would have asked for more and more incentives worldwide to make EV cars. And then they'd have ramped up production and collected all those sweet tax dollars.

With Tesla about, nobody lobbies for new EV incentives, because it would be helping the 'outsider', and it's fairly apparant they aren't needed.

I read the "innovator" in that post as "Tesla" and not "Musk", FWIW. You don't need to buy in to the ridiculous cult of personality to agree that Tesla cars have absolutely pushed the market in new directions.

What innovation are we talking about? Did they steal some patent or IP to catch?

>And everyone downplays the innovation, as if it were just part of some natural evolution of things.

And everyone plays up the Single Great Genius Who Did Everything Himself (including the men themselves) and how they personally boldly innovated everything. N

ever mind the fact that Musk did not start Tesla and is not the person actually designing or implementing its technology. He is the Great and Glorious Musk, so he deserves all of the praise.

That story is indeed timeless.

The imitators always catch up to the innovators.

Nissan was making (to quote parent) "boring and reliable" electric cars before Musk showed up. I don't know what you're on about with the rest, it's pretty non-sensical.

Electric Vehicles have been around for decades. Arguably, if it wasn't for the weed-smoking twitter troll, those established car companies would still not be investing in EVs. Notably, the Electric Vehicle that surpassed all measures of quality by Comsumer Reports; giving away patents to expedite the EV development, research, and related infrastructure; cutting out the middle man in the distribution channel...

A bit odd how quickly the cynics and Monday Morning Quarterbacks usurp the conversation.

They didn’t give away patents. They publicly announced they would cross-license patents. You only get to use them if you also give Tesla all of your patents.

> Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you

Not exactly: "Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology." IANAL, but I have no idea what that means.

> Arguably, if it wasn't for the weed-smoking twitter troll, those established car companies would still not be investing in EVs.

I think Tesla made EVs cooler or made them look like an actual option, but it isn't true that other car makers just ignored EV options. They produced them for decades, there just was no public interest. VW for example had a new electric model at least once every decade for over 50 years now (a golf each in the 70s, 80s and 90s, a EV bus in the 70s etc.), there just wasn't much mainstream interest.

VW and incumbent manufacturers never built a supercharger network that made long-distance travel in their EVs feasible.

The goalposts seem to be in fine shape this morning, look at them go!

They are investing in EVs mostly because governments are moving towards mandating them to combat global warming and pollution eg. "Norway to 'completely ban petrol powered cars by 2025'" etc. Not mostly because of Tesla.

In the US, Hyundai sells the Ioniq with ICE, hybrid, and EV drive trains:

https://www.hyundaiusa.com/ioniq/

Hyundai is taking a smart approach, making sure new platforms support electrification to varying levels. Take the Kona for example, it was introduced as an ICE vehicle and is shaping up to be an intriguing EV.

Unfortunately they're limiting EV model sales to certain states. Hoping they expand beyond compliance car status soon. The Kona EV is _actually on lots_, around $40k before any rebates/credits/incentives, and has a ~250 mile range.

AFAIK Hyundai Kona EV and Kia Nero EV have 1 year waiting list because they can't source batteries ?

Even the higher end Jaguar I Pace has a waiting list. AFAIK no EV manufacturer has managed to ramp the productions enough to meet the demand

If there is one thing Capitalism is good at, its scaling to meet demand. It might take another 2-3 years but the writing is on the wall

No doubt about it - but my point is other manufacturers will be facing similar issues Tesla is facing right now - time will tell if they are better equipped at dealing with them - I have 0 insight in to the industry - but as a potential customer I see the results on the market and Tesla still seems ahead of others in terms of actually delivering.

It can be the case that it isn't worth ramping up production. It depends on what sort of demand they are estimating. If there are only about 18 months of orders at lower volumes, why bother filling them in 6 months...

Well all the manufacturers are paying lip service to "electric is the future" - IMO if they truly believed that then it would make sense to invest in scaling even if there isn't immediate demand to have the production capacity for future models.

I tend to think that battery cost has to hit some tipping point before vehicle volume matters much.

Of course vehicle sales can participate in improvements in battery cost, but there's plenty of investment there whether you are retailing cars or not.

There's a reason Tesla built the Gigafactory and has a second one coming on line in China. None of the other major western car manufacturers have invested in the infrastructure to be able to produce battery packs in volume. There's a lot of lip service being given to electric cars from traditional car makers but none of them can produce electric cars in any meaningful volume, and are realistically years from being able to produce packs by the tens of thousands per month. I guess their take is build the demand and then ramp up production. Then there's the issue insuring a supply of raw materials, Tesla has taken pains to insure they have a long term supply of Lithium, and have all but removed Cobalt from their batteries, which as far as I know is unique to their cells. The other manufacturers are going to have a hard time getting the raw materials in volume when they try to ramp up battery production, unless they've been making moves years ago to insure their supply.

Asia is doing a fantastic job with EVs. I really like what Hyuandai did with the Ioniq, they kept it simple and reasonable. I'd love to see more of the same from other manufacturers.

Tesla will always be a media circus company unfortunately. With or without Musk there are many people who have a lot to gain with it failing. I think they have a clear path forward and will succeed.

China is the biggest story in EVs, Tesla is the biggest story in EVs outside of China. However the potential emissions avoided is massive there, from a climate perspective all of the big Chinese EV makers are just as crucial as Tesla. Sadly Tesla is a controversy magnet.

And the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai is quite far along.

https://electrek.co/2019/05/01/tesla-gigafactory-3-drone-vid...

Tesla in China might be the biggest story for Tesla as a company.

The Hyundai Kona Electric and Kia e-Niro are great EVs, and would be really strong competitors to the Model 3, but Hyundai/Kia can't hardly manufacture any of them because they can't secure a decent supply of battery packs. Whereas Tesla has the gigafactory.

On which Panasonic pulled the brakes.

Theoretical capacity of the gigafactory is currently 35GWh/year, current production is 26GWh/year. Panasonic has stopped increasing the theoretical number to concentrate on getting the actual number up to the theoretical number.

So pulling the brakes on further investments.

Which is not the same as pulling the brakes on current very significant production

No brakes pulled whatsoever. They're discussing about further expansion beyond 35gwh.

It's a bit easy to say everything just works, after solving the easy problems and then chastising Musk for being weird while trying to solve the hard problems. A golf cart could reliably transport people from one side of Jeju to the other.

IMHO, Korean companies seem to be making a more direct beeline to electric than the major Japanese makers for some reason. I'm in Japan right now in fact and see many more variants of hybrids than in the states, but haven't seen a single all electric of any type yet. I've also seen a handful of fuel cell and other fuel type vehicles...last time I was in Korea I definitely felt a faster convergence on electric tech than here. The Japanese makers seem to be going at it more slowly...perhaps lessons learned from the leaf?

> The Japanese makers seem to be going at it more slowly...perhaps lessons learned from the leaf?

I'm not sure they learned anything from the Leaf tbh. It's a fine little car and I've never met anyone who owned one (myself included) who said anything other than "it needs more range and it's too expensive". Sure there's all sorts of things you could nitpick about, just like with any car, but at it's core the range and sticker price are the only major issues.

It looks like all the first generation Leafs from the USA are now here in Ukraine, selling like hot cakes for around 20k USD. For that price, the range that is left on their now-degraded batteries seems just fine.

20k USD? Yikes! You can get a 2015 Leaf in the US for under $9k.

I guess it depends on condition of each car, there are cheaper ones as well. But the point is, quite a lot of people even in my "poor" country are ready to pay $20k for a low-range EV. Which makes me conclude that range is not as much of an issue as price.

I bought a Certified PreOwned 2015 Leaf in 2017 near mint condition with 20k miles, full battery bars, and a warranty for $12k. Comparable cars are ~$3k cheaper now.

My Leaf has a reported range of 75-90 miles fully charged. I'm in the South Eastern US and my commute to work is roughly 25 miles of highway (65-80mph) driving one way. So in theory I should have 25+ miles of range when arriving home in the evenings but highway driving draws more power as does operating climate control so that's best case. It doesn't leave much room for errands in the evenings after work.

I lost a bar recently but oddly it does not seem to have affected the range at all.

A big diff between Tesla and Hyundai is that Hyundai spends billions marketing and Tesla spends its CEO for it.

I ride an electric moped in Vienna, Austria, an UNU - and it is really a boring device - goes slow (60km/h max, low torque), but, like you I feel its the future.

Its just so nice to ride something that doesn't pollute.

The moment you realise you're sitting in traffic, and you're the only one not pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, it really change your opinion - I will never, ever go back to internal combustion engines.

Being able to charge at the house - amazing. I never have to go out of my way to fuel up - granted, I do have chargers all over the city if I need it, but the two batteries I use get me all over Vienna every day, with spare to get home with ease.

I wonder what a Tesla moped would look like? IMHO, this would be a greater move for Tesla in Europe - where mopeds just plain work.

Either way, I'm never going back to gas. Its just that great.

Why can't a CEO do weed?

Because he fired, and continues to fire employees who do it on their own time, outside of work.

Because you generally can't contract for the federal government while breaking federal laws.

But, of course, the rules are not the same for him as they are for you and me.

Elon doesn’t actively smoke weed. It’s highly unlikely he’d fire someone for trying weed for the first time outside of work. Doing it actively is different than doing it once. It’s more difficult to trust someone under the influence to operate machinery as someone who is not under the influence

> It’s highly unlikely he’d fire someone for trying weed for the first time outside of work.

Tesla drug-tests, and fires employees who test positive for THC, regardless of whether they are under the influence or not.

You can test positive for THC, and be stone-cold-sober when you show up to work. THC markers can stay in your system for weeks.

The fact is, they are not testing whether or not someone is showing up to work high. They are testing whether or not someone got high in the past few weeks.

I have family member who works in retail. Everyone including CEO is tested for alcohol levels every morning. Originally this was just for the guys operating the forklifts in the warehouse. I guess this was seen as discrimination to just test the warehouse guys. Anyway the point I wanted to make is there not a substantial reason Tesla tests for THC other than just wanting to fire employees?

> Anyway the point I wanted to make is there not a substantial reason Tesla tests for THC other than just wanting to fire employees?

They have a reason, the reason is unfair, unscientific, and is not consistently, or fairly applied throughout the company. One set of rules for the peasants, another for the executives.

Those are fair points. Did Tesla introduce this practice all of a sudden or did employees get hired well knowing or at least provided in the agreement that this was a known practice? I can understand the outrage for the former but not the latter.

Everything just works and its partly because of Elon that it works NOW. Massive amounts of money flowing into electric vehicles because manufacturers do not want to lose market share to Tesla. They were doing quiet ok with oil cars.

The Ioniq?