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RE: The Tesla Killer? Why Fisker Zombie-Motive Is Vaporware (AGAIN!!!)
I think it's too early to speculate. Like you, I am also a strong supporter of Tesla, but ... when the iPhone came out, Blackberry's executives also thought it was just a toy and wouldn't impact their sales.
Tesla and Fisker will hopefully both do well. Competition will improve both of their companies.
With respect to improvement, in the near future, I hope that most Countries will try to produce cleaner energy so that the Electric cars create less pollution (cradle to grave) than their gas consuming cousins.
I appreciate the sentiment, and agree with you that competition is good, but I believe that Fisker's decision to pretend they're going to release a battery that is orders of magnitude better than existing technology reveals that they are not acting in good faith. They're either ignorant or lying. It won't happen. Mark my words. There will be plenty of competition in the electric car market, but none will come from Fisker. They will not succeed. My forecasts have a habit of coming true.
Lovely article andrarchy, my family own a Model S as well as an X, and we're very pleased with them. As you've pointed out, battery technology has been progressing linearly for a while now, whilst many other things seem to be following a sort of exponential curve of sorts. I don't think that battery technology will be the ultimate decider of who succeeds in the BEV industry, it will probably be the infrastructure built around it. More super-chargers, more innovative software (ride sharing + autopilot for example).
Most of the incumbent car manufacturers prior to Tesla have already developed core competencies in building cars that people like to drive. My worry is that Tesla have made bold claims on manufacturing model 3's in numbers orders of magnitude greater than they have achieved thus far and then further bolstered their lineup with two more cars with completely different drive trains.
One of the most attractive aspects of Elon is that he is a risk taker that likes to make bold claims, which if come true, make him seem infallible. On the contrary, it looks pretty bad when he falls short. So, whilst trying to be objective, it isn't only Fisker who have made bold claims that may not be brought to fruition, Tesla are already some what guilty of that.
Excellent points all around. The issue of delays is a common one, but also one that I think the market already expects. Musk always delivers ... and almost always has delays. At this point people expect it. The question isn't whether people fail to meet their deadlines, it's whether they fail to meet their customer's expectations. Tesla only fails to meet their deadlines so that they can guarantee meeting expectations. Model 3 is actually experiencing less delays than most of their products have. Model X was 2 years behind schedule (and you guys still bought one!). Btw I'm super jealous you have an X!
They actually started delivering 3s on time, they're just not scaling productions as fast as they thought they would. No one who believes in the company cares, only people who never believed in the company in the first place consider these serious issues. At the end of the day, when people are mad at you because they really, really, really want your product, that's a totally different problem then people being mad at you because you are unable to deliver a quality a product. Fisker hasn't just made bold claims, they have zero track record of ever delivering anything resembling an interesting product. Model 3 will be the most purchased electric car by orders of magnitude. Their only serious problem will be that they won't be able to produce enough of them to meet market demand for years. That's what we call in the biz, "good problems." :)
As a Tesla Stock holder, I really hope you are correct. :-)
As long as there aren't too many stumbling blocks with the Model 3 Production, I think they are also going to the moon!!! (Ironical Pun intended)
HAHA. I too am a Tesla stockholder and I am extremely confident. That being said, I have always and will always qualify that Tesla (like cryptocurrencies) is highly speculative. But highly speculative investments are an important element to a well-balanced portfolio. But while Tesla is speculative, every other electric-vehicle play is far MORE speculative IMO. There are still no contenders and when people highlight products that don't even exist yet and that have every marker of vaporware, that only makes me more confident.