Aside from market share, it doesn't seem like much of a risk to go with what works now and save the big EV push for later. GM still came out with the Bolt, which is an excellent competitor for the Model 3. Not too pretty, but the numbers are all very good. So they know how to do it, and when the sales are there they can scale up production of whatever they're marking 10 or 20 years from now. I'd bet on GM in a battle with Tesla, to be honest, though Musk has a lot of chutzpah.

It's a little different though. Kodak was invested in a huge consumables business and neither they (nor really anyone else) figured out a way to translate that sort of pay per use model to the digital world.

GM doesn't get money from gas (though their dealers do get money from maintenance which is hypothetically(?) lower with electric vehicles. Different anyway.)

Kodak was a chemical company that was expected to start making semiconductors or consumer electronics. It's all "photography" but the film and digital industries are very different.

I'm not sure if this year all figures are the same, but when I was car-shopping in November, Colorado state granted up to $6,000 in tax credits for new EVs. Federal tax credit was $7,500. And on top of that, Nissan was adding their own discount for their new Leafs.

So, nobody pays the full price of an EV at the moment. You can currently buy 1-2 year-old, certified Nissan Leafs for less than $13,000.

Superchargers.

I regularly make a ~300mi roundtrip with our Tesla, I wouldn't own one today if that wasn't possible.

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Before anyone brings up ChaDeMo(I have the adapter), SAE combo neither are nearly as fast(120kW) in real-world use and have nearly as much market penetration.

The super-charger network is also something that's planned and built-out with the intention of being to make the major arterials rather than having a patchwork of various companies providing chargers.

The Bolt can't really make road trips because the fast charging network it can use is pretty bad. (That's in the US. Supposedly Europe is a lot better in this respect.) Even where the facilities exist, the Bolt's charging rate is about half of what Tesla can do.

The self-driving/driver-assistance tech gulf is pretty big. The Bolt is fairly basic, while the Model 3 will have at least Tesla's Autopilot 2 hardware, which they say will be sufficient for full self-driving once the software is done. Even if that doesn't work out, it'll have excellent traffic-aware cruise control and lane keeping at the least.

I'd say the brand is also fairly important. Not (just) because Tesla is "cool," but because Tesla is committed. Supposedly GM is planning for something like 50,000 Bolts per year, so it seems like yet another car where dealers will try to steer you to a nice pickup truck or something instead, and finding someone willing to service it could be tough.

Putting it all together, and it seems like GM is putting their toe in the water, while Tesla is balls-to-the-wall (forgive the mixed metaphor).

> probably more self-driving tech

I probably shouldn't be sharing this but I know someone who is working on the Bolt and he told me they've been having a lot of trouble integrating self-driving tech that's close to Tesla's

At that price you're probably looking at a pre-Autopilot car, which I'd probably avoid. Autopilot is great, for one thing, but also because Tesla's build quality got substantially better over time. I don't think it's because of Autopilot, but its introduction makes for a decent dividing line between old and new.

I haven't looked too hard at the used market, but it looks like a decent way to get one for less. This web site lists a bunch that Tesla is selling through their CPO program if you want to see what's out there:

https://ev-cpo.com/hunter/

For what it's worth, I have an early 2015 Model S and it's had a few minor problems, but nothing close to leaving me stranded.

I think gas prices are driving EVs less and less. It's still a factor, for sure, but things like performance, noise, maintenance, and convenience are driving it heavily as well. Of all the reasons I love my Model S, fuel savings are pretty far down the list, although I certainly don't mind!

There's a pretty decent market for used Model Ss out there. It's not huge, since Model Ss of sufficient age don't exist in great numbers, but it's not too bad.

I've been looking at cheaper used EVs for a second car. There are lots of used LEAFs out there, some Smart EDs, and a couple of Focus Electrics, which look really nice if you don't mind the short range, but aren't very popular at all. These cars seem to drop in value a lot for the used market. I saw several that were not all that old going for under $10,000.

Teslas seem to retain their value better. I'd guess it's partly because the car is more desirable, and partly because Tesla treats their batteries a lot better, so they can be expected to last longer. The LEAF in particular was known for a while for losing quite a bit of range in just a few years.

As far as how they'll retain their value in the long term, it's hard to say. EVs should lose less value due to things like drivetrain wear, since you don't have a bazillion moving parts in an engine and transmission to go wrong. But they'll lose more value to battery degradation. Much will hinge on how well the batteries age and how much they cost to replace in 10+ years.

Well, I bought my '12 Volt used for under $10,000 with 60,000 miles. At the time I bought (last year), they were usually about $12,000 at a dealer, and trade-in about $8000 for the same car. I got mine from a friend who wanted to trade-in (to get a new Volt... the Gen 2 Volts--starting with 2016--are even better than Gen 1), so we both got a good deal. Fantastic car.

Anyway, there are plenty of used electric cars out there if you're happy with the models that have been out for a few years.

> Marketing can influence consumers' affinity for brands and perception of product quality. It can't change economics.

Actually, I would say marketing is one of the few things that actually can change economics, since it affects perception. Marketing can make someone think they need a new car when they don't, or that a car is affordable than an alternative when it really isn't (given financing, fuel economy, services, etc which are not always taken into account).

People don't make decisions based on reality, they make decisions based on their perception of reality. If you can change that perception, you may change their decisions.

>But will the demand for electric vehicles justify a valuation on par with General Motors? That's the rub.

Yep. Building cars for the mainstream is a low-margin, capital-intensive business. That doesn't go away because Musk is brilliant.

Most people just need their car to get around and will migrate to whatever is the cheapest option with the capabilities they want. Right now, electric cars cost more. Eventually, they will probably be cheaper than gas. When that happens, the market for electric vehicles will be essentially the same as the market for vehicles. (Gas may still be needed in the medium-near-term for things like pulling a trailer up a long hill.)

The other common measurement of 0->60 acceleration and not top speed. The proper description would be "quickest production sedan" instead of "fastest production sedan" but I digress.

You can't really compare the "F-Series" with a single car. A more accurate comparison would probably be all sedan's with the F-Series.

But yes, trucks are on the rise again.

> Point out Tesla's crossover SUV with the range of a gasoline vehicle and the price point of a Chevy Equinox ($25k). I'll wait.

Whoa — you have to realize what you just did there, right? This is a massive shifting of the goalposts from what you said Tesla's problem was earlier, which is that SUVs and light trucks are what sells.

Anyway, I don't think most people with SUVs actually go through a full tank of gas a day, so having completely equal range doesn't seem like that big an issue. So now it sounds like Tesla's major problem is that they're competing with the Range Rover rather than the Equinox.

How large are those cars? No wonder traffic is so bad.