But, who is going to build those charging stations? Tesla? Where are they getting that money? They're blowing through cash hand over fist right now and have liquidity concerns atm. Also, 30 minutes is a long time to stop if you're on, say, a 5 hour drive. Natural gas and to a lesser extent E85 cars have the same issues. Natural gas cars make sense, but there's no place to fill them up. In Little Rock, there are two locations within an hour to get it. Our company has a natural gas hybrid car that runs on petrol and natural gas. 99% of the time it's on petrol because no one takes the time to drive 20 minutes out of their way to fill it up with natural gas.pioneer98 wrote:
The concern about the range of the car....Tesla is putting "supercharging" stations across the country where you could recharge your car quickly (in like 30 minutes) when you are on a road trip. It wouldn't be that different from stopping for gas. I don't know if other cars like the Chevy Bolt would be able to use these stations, or if Chevy has a similar plan for something like this. I was pretty unimpressed with the Bolt when I read it would take 9 hours to fully charge. If electric cars take 9 hours to recharge, it will be a problem.
I agree that Musk's business model is almost exactly like Apple's when Steve Jobs was there. The giant touchscreen mounted on the dashboard even made it seem like the kind of car that Apple would make. It's an iCar. Musk's presentation last night started out with a spiel about global warming. You are paying a premium to be a part of their vision for the future or whatever.
I do think in the long term that electric cars are the way of the future and they will get these concerns about charging, range, etc, worked out. If the Chevy Bolt or Nissan Leaf work just as well as a Tesla, but are cheaper and have a better dealer network, then I'd have no problem buying one of those cars someday. I'm also an Android user though.
And...it fails to be similar to Jobs' business plan in apple in that they don't have a distinguishable product. The iphone was revolutionary in that it put instant and unlimited access to information at the user's fingertip. Tesla does the same thing, mostly, as what tons of other cars do just with electricity instead of gas. Touchscreens and all the gadgets are becoming increasingly popular in all vehicles as well with the rise of carplay/appleplay.
Tesla's unique in it's systems at this point in time, but it's not unique in it's function which will be its downfall, imho.