This is assuming BMW et all stop any innovation. But they won't. They will offer an electric vehicle the moment it becomes feasible (and I am sorry but 200 miles range is still an exciting and expensive toy).
What BMW doesn't see is that Tesla is gunning for the 3 Series market with the GenIII car. Tesla is confident they can make a substantially better car than the 3 series (or Lexus IS, Audi A4, etc) in most regards and make it priced competitively. I don't think BMW is taking Tesla seriously... they're more focused on existing competitors.
If Tesla succeeds in making a substantially better car than the 3 Series that's priced competitively, then everybody in that market (BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C, Lexus IS, Audi4, etc.) will be in catch up mode. And that will the story of the decade in the car industry... how a scrappy Silicon Valley startup did the impossible to the auto industry.
Car companies didn't (actually, if you go back long enough ago, they did, but they're over it now) have to transform their company and manufacturing processes in radical ways when they began offering both types of fuel, any more than had to when they began offering multiple cylinder displacement options (2.0L, 454cc, etc.) Diesel and gas engines both require fuel systems, radiators, alternators, air intakes, exhaust pipes with mufflers, transmissions, etc. It is actually possible (although not always easy) to just replace one type of engine with the other in a user-owned car, so much more in the factory.
It is quite another thing to rip out everything involved in the motive function, except the axles, wheels, and tires. If BMW wait too long to start the process, they won't get the results to a BMW quality level for many years. They'll have to decide whether they want to saddle the brand image with crappy electrical cars or if they'd prefer to sell their crappy electrical cars with a low-prestige marque.
They're in a different class. Tesla is set up to do it right from the start at a much faster pace.
Tesla will be the Apple of anything that moves, trust me. It was clear to me when I saw the Roadster design and the roadmap, but I digress...
Jumping on your slightly irrelevant analogies, it is like iPod 5 with a batter that can only hold charge for 30 minutes, and can only charged at Apple store.
You don't have to charge your Tesla at the Tesla dealership. And, seriously, if you make dozens of unpredictable stops in your day, I'll grant you, an electric car might not be for you. But, I don't think I've ever made impromptu out-of-city trips with my gas combustion car. That's more a planning thing.
They're producing quality again. Starting to get it, I think.
Tesla's main innovation isn't electric cars, it's electric car fashion.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_zero-emissions_vehicle... "zero evaporative (fuel system) emissions"
The capabilities of the current crop of vehicles is still outside the typical driving expectations of the broader market (limited range, slow charging). Once the technology improves to affordably and effectively eliminate these issues, all of the manufacturers are going become very motivated. If Tesla can own the solutions to these problems as a barrier to entry, then they will be in better shape. I don't know if one small company can hold a dominating technical advantage over motivated, well-funded companies in this kind of space for very long.
The top post in this thread has a good idea of it—they're producing not only a drastically different drivetrain technology-wise, but also a drastically improved ride, driving experience, and controlling every aspect of the car purchasing, driving, and servicing experience. (And with superchargers, also the refueling experience to a degree).
This is strikingly reminiscent of Apple's model. This is why I made the comparison, and I think it's highly valid. I don't mean to compare their product or level of innovation or even the amount of differentiation. I mean to compare the companies and their models. And I not only believe it's a successful model, I believe it's been proven and will continue to be proven.
If you break it down and look at individual parts in isolation, sure, you can see ways they could be beat. But that's the problem with this way of thinking—Tesla is not breaking it down. They see the whole picture, and that will lead to their success. That's the key.
So tell me, does that still hold water?
BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, Porsche, etc. These companies/brands are producing great products. You can compare Chrysler to Gateway and get away with it maybe. But there are a lot of innovative car companies out there who are out in front of what people want -- and are actually making money doing it.
It doesn't take a startup to build the next big thing. Take Apple, for instance..
BTW, I am rooting for Tesla. I would love a Model S.
Standing still while "the powers that be" catch up seems oddly unlike a company with such an obvious culture of pushing the envelope.
Some people say that Tesla is the "Apple of transportation", and that Tesla can achieve success as Apple has with their design and user experience. I don't see it, however. If that was so, their differentiation would be more about industrial design and experience, and not the technology. But, as I said previously, if you put a traditional engine in a Tesla, you have a quirky luxury car manufacturer with little advantage over the more established (and experienced) competition, but with non-trivial competitive disadvantages.
If charge time were reduced to 30 minutes in the general case for electric cars, I'd be much, much more likely to consider them a viable alternative to my current car. We just need the infrastructure. Honestly, I believe that the car that's going to win the transition race is going to be the one that acquires the infrastructure the most quickly, be it electric fast-charging stations, hydrogen refineries/pumping stations, electrically-charged gel stations, or whatever thing we end up thinking up.
All this talk about new transportation fuels imho always sidesteps the fact that gasoline will never run out.
Petroleum will, but producing gasoline out of other sources is something that we already know how to do, and have done in industrial scale in the past. Fischer-Tropsch is cost-effective from coal at some point below $150 oil price. If you want to be carbon neutral, you just have to use a carbon feedstock that fills from the atmosphere, and a carbon neutral heat source.
A hydrogen economy is a complete hoax. If you want to make your fuel synthetically, hydrogen has practically no advantages over synthetic gasoline.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gasification [2] - Fischer-Tropsch - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process
However, using coal means that you are not carbon neutral. It's a lot better to use some process of sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere -- either through plants, or directly. The plant solutions differ from plant oil or ethanol-based fuel production in that the plants are not expected to add any energy to the mix. This makes the process a lot more lenient on what you can stuff in, and makes the drain on agriculture a lot less severe. Also, since the nutrients in the plants are going to be left behind at gasification, they can be reused as fertilizer.
I would not take Tesla on my camping trip, or my ski trip, or my ~700 miles road trip. And I honestly do not want a car I cannot use outside of my commute.
There is no reason that the Tesla has to make a value proposition which assumes it wont be paired with a more utilitarian vehicle by buyers. And with the superchargers, you really can drive the SF-LA corridor, which in CA at least, is very very good.
In fact, 300 miles sounds perfectly adequate. Many cars won't go much further before they need more fuel. But if refilling involved more than spending 5 minutes at a petrol station (of which there are plenty, everywhere) it might start to sound a bit less reasonable...
The amount of time spent actually transferring liquid into the tank may only be 5 minutes. But then you need to add the time it takes for your card to authorize, the time it takes to go inside to use the restroom and buy snacks, etc. Then there's time it takes to get on and off the freeway (it always seems like there's a red light at the end of the off-ramp and another one to get out of the gas station). If you stop for fast food, that adds another 10 minutes (30 for a sit-down restaurant). Someone is sure to chime in that a gas car with three drivers and an empty container can drive 23.5 hours per day: I'm sure we've all done that at least once in college, but that mode of transport is much less appealing after one grows up.
My point is just that when all is said and done, the comparison is less like 5 minutes vs. 30 minutes and more like to 25-40 minutes vs. 40-50 minutes. The electric is still slower, but not 6 times slower, and you have an excuse to eat slightly less unhealthy food.
The sum of all the time spent at the pump will be greater than the times you spend at Superchargers for the occasional long distance trip.
I suppose my thinking is just that while most of the time it will be fine, you won't have to look that far or try that hard to find a journey that would need a recharge to complete. Visiting friends, let's say. Now, what are your options? You could visit the super charger, which could work, but that assumes there is one nearby! (There are currently all of six, and all in California as far as I can tell. Yes, there will be 150 in 2015, they say - but it is 2012.)
You could find a car charge point. They're also somewhat rare, though certainly more common than the super charger, and, currently, have inevitably lower throughput than a petrol station. So it may take longer to find a free one.
You could use a plug. Better hope you're visiting somebody who doesn't live in a flat, or who has nearby parking on the street! Also, now you're hitting up your hosts for the cost of your transport. And let's hope it's not a big get-together, and everybody else lives nearby :)
(Or, if you're staying at a hotel, expect to pay for the use of their electricity the same way you pay for the use of their phone and their drinks cabinet. If you're taking your children somewhere child-friendly, you should probably expect similar mistreatment. And so on.)
I am vaguely negative based on the current situation, and I don't really trust grand claims about the future. But should the outlook change, I will be sure to change my tune accordingly. I have no particular desire to spend more on transport than required, nor do I have any specific emotional attachment to the internal combustion engine.
If it does turn out you need to drive out to the boonies you can rent a car for that on a case-by-case basis, much like how we don't all drive box trucks on the off chance that we might need to move a big TV back home someday. But in the meantime you'd still get the benefit with your normal car.
If you drive long distances more often though, then that obviously changes the decision for now... at this point a Tesla wouldn't be for you until there was more Supercharger infrastructure around the nation.
Honestly we already have something similar going on, at least where I live (in DC) I see those tiny little Smart cars every so often, but you can bet your ass that you don't hardly ever see them outside the Beltway, no one is dumb enough to risk their life in one of those little things on a long-distance trip out of, and back to, DC.
However, there are probably more places to plug in than you'd expect. For example, there are tons of RV parks all around the country, many of which have NEMA 14-50 sockets for grandma and grandpa to plug their big camper into. Those sockets can deliver about 10 kW. Then there are electric clothes dryers, found in many homes: They typically use a 240V, 30A circuit, which can deliver about 5 kW continuously.
That last option isn't really practical on the freeway, but how far do you plan to drive to hang out with friends for half an hour? Let's say you drive a couple hours and stay for the afternoon: Their dryer socket will refill almost half of a Tesla's battery for the grand sum of $5--that'll be enough to get you home (there are practical problems with the approach, but it's not a bad 0th-order approximation). Are your friends so worried about electricity that they wouldn't accept a 6-pack of their favorite brew in exchange for a power outlet?
Electric car owners who frequent online forums report that hotels are very reasonable about charging, and some even install free-to-use chargers as a value-add to attract customers. In the long term, if electric car adoption increases, hotels will obviously either need to add a surcharge or raise room rates. But, even if a hotel did sell electricity at a 100% markup, the customer's energy cost for driving a mile on electricity would still be less than half the cost on gasoline.
Certainly, electric cars won't work for all trips, and the infrastructure needed to move electrons from the grid to the car is missing in many places. On the other hand, equipment for 10 kW charging (that's a charge rate of about 30 miles per hour) can be installed almost anywhere in the continental United States for between a few hundred and couple thousand dollars (and in many places it already exists). For new construction, before landscaping is installed and where a right-size breaker panel can be installed in the first place, the cost of installing 240V, 50A service in the garage is almost inconsequential.