valhalla360 wrote:
John & Angela wrote:
Yes to all the above but remember. Tesla is not a car company, it is a technology company. Cars are just one thing they do. Tesla is also the single biggest driver of this kind of technology in North America right now, meaning that what they do also drives other companies to develop technology marketable the world over. Although there are many who would like to see Tesla fail for various reasons there is currently no other players in the north American market that will easily fill the void. Many analysts feel that if it does fail the technology leadership role will pass to the Chinese and Europe and never come back. At least three European countries have been tempting Tesla with offers to move the operation to various EU locations. As well the Chinese will be exporting electric vehicles into the North American market place within two to three years. There is political pressure to see them succeed on this side of the pond. I'm not a share holder and both our EV's are built by other companies but I can understand the reasoning for "enabling" there success. Just saying.
Tesla talks about being a technology company but they haven't sold anything else but cars, so that makes them a car company until they start selling other things.
They also aren't pushing the other car companies. The other car companies are reacting to govt mandates or they wouldn't be bothering. Notice, Ford didn't get caught up in the govt bailout is also much less interested in pure electric. GM who was essentially taken over by the Govt, fast tracked a pure electric car.
If you want to point to autonomous systems, everyone does variations on those and for years has had programs developing them. Only difference is as a small start up, Tesla is taking far riskier approach and not vetting the systems as well. Large mature companies take a more circumspect approach as they have seen the issues with moving too quickly.
Mike I think I'll respectfully disagree on this one. I see lots of spinoff industry developing. There is also powerwall sales, EV roof sales, solar panel manufacturing, even supercharger network and infrastructure development all generating jobs and exports. About half of their cars are built for export and although I'm not an American I catch snippets of news that indicate that is an important issue in your country right now. As well , every S and X sold in the US is a BMW or Benz not imported. JMHO Mike.
Safe travels.
