Why hasn't Big Auto caught Tesla? Maybe it's the laws of physics.
Before the rise of Tesla, conventional wisdom held that it would be practically impossible for a startup company to challenge the Big Auto giants. When economics professors explained the concept of barriers to entryOf course, the auto industry was usually the #1 example. Selling cars in quantity not only requires massive industrial resources, but also requires a highly complex supply chain and dealer network, so a startup can’t possibly compete.
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Above: Tesla’s Model 3 and GM’s Chevy Bolt (Source: Wikipedia Commons/Marioardo)
Events have shown that model was no longer valid—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was no longer valid, given the increasing importance of software and technology in the auto industry. In retrospect, Tesla was in the right place with the right idea at the right time. Lithium-ion battery technology has only advanced to the extent that a high-performance EV has become viable; The Tesla team wisely opted to build a sexy hot rod instead of a smaller, sensible gas-saver; And perhaps most importantly, the company benefited from an amazing pool of talent and many great pieces of good fortune.
This all explains Tesla’s early success with the Roadster, and later with the Model S. But there’s another conundrum that’s still causing auto industry observers to scratch their figurative heads. Once Tesla had shown what was possible, why didn’t Big Auto make its way into the EV space and bury the upstart? Even some of Tesla’s founders expected this to happen in just a few years.
In this event, it has been two decades. Only now are legacy automakers starting to mount anything like a serious challenge for brash startups. Ford’s Mustang Mach-E recently surpassed Tesla’s Model 3 as Consumer Reports’ EV top pick. It’s a sign that at least one of the Old Guard has figured it out, and that we’re finally going to see some competition in the EV space (though by most accounts, the older brands have to “catch up” There is a long way to go.”).
Why did it take so long for dinosaurs to notice the scaly mammal under their feet? Why was Roadrunner able to darken a coyote’s face with TNT so many times? How many pop culture metaphors should we journalists employ before we can give any satisfactory answer to this important question?
We have tried many times in this area, employing endlessly amusing and educational rhetorical rhetoric. We’ve explained Big Auto’s failure to catch Tesla in the context of the famous innovator’s dilemma (twice), and we’ve included a famous literary cliché, the murder mystery, as a metaphor. This week, we present an analogy from the world of physics:
force = mass * acceleration
To understand how it works, watch how rainwater falls from the roof. When water falls directly from the eaves of your home, it will quickly dig a dent in the ground, and ruin your flower beds (over time, it will wear a hole through a concrete patio). You can solve the problem by installing gutters and downspouts and thus changing the terms of the equation. Water falling from a roof has the same mass, but as it passes through gutters and downspouts, friction reduces its speed, so it hits the ground with much less force, and flows harmlessly. Is.
What does hydrodynamics have to do with cars? Well, let’s consider force as a metaphor for EV market share, while mass stands for the amount of available resources (capital, production capacity, marketing) and acceleration represents the speed at which an automaker can run its EV program. develops. Obviously, giant legacy automakers can bring in too much force to bear the electrification problem, but wee Tesla has consistently applied a lot of acceleration.
To be clear, the technical challenge of building a practical EV was never really an issue. GM’s EV1 was no Model S, but it was a viable vehicle that could have been a good first step in the iteration process leading to a commercially successful product. However, GM elected to cancel the program, and did not work on EVs for a decade. Other legacy automakers have acted out at different rates. So far, almost every one of them has put at least one EV on the market, and some of these have been excellent vehicles. Neither of these firms could have done so much earlier and much faster, if they had chosen to devote more capital and technical expertise, both of which they had always had a considerable amount, to the problem. It wasn’t a lack of technical ability, it was inspiration.
To follow our first principles analogy, older brands have always had a lot of mass, but little acceleration. At firms like GM, the electrification program was like a boulder being pushed slowly and reluctantly down a slope. Tesla’s master plan, on the other hand, was like a little pebble being eagerly kicked down that slope as quickly as possible. Now the pebble has grown into a fairly sizable rock, and is gathering some serious power.
If you prefer an automotive analogy, old-line companies are like hammers crawling along the shoulder, the driver’s feet off the gas; Tesla is like a little roadster in a passing street with metal pedals.
There’s no physical reason why one or more forward-looking automakers can’t ultimately rival Tesla’s EV market share. They just need to step on the accelerator pedal (very hard). There are signs that at least one couple of them are getting ready to do so. VW, GM, Daimler, Hyundai and others are converting factories to EV production, securing supply chains, building charging infrastructure, and diverting resources from outdated technologies.
Make no mistake, we love Tesla vehicles, and whatever happens, there’s always a certain mystery to them. But it’s not healthy — for the environment, the auto industry or consumers — for a company to continue to dominate the EV market. It’s time to hammer the rest of the world’s automakers!
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Written by: Charles Morris
was published
Electric Vehicles, GM, Tesla, Tesla News, TSLA
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