On 5 May 2019 at 17:04, Lee Hart via EV wrote: > I don't think the situation is hopeless or impossible. But it is > certainly difficult. > > It's the Innovator's Dilemma. How do you sell a disruptive new product > in a market already controlled by entrenched competitors? Answer? You > can't. You have to find, or create a new market, and fly under their > "rader" until you can get big enough to compete. Like Apple vs. IBM, or > Amazon vs. Sears.
The problem is that most products that claim to be "disruptive" aren't. (Hello, Juicero!) "Disruptive" has become just another advertising buzzword, as bogus as any of them, except that it seems to be more useful in advertising to investors than to consumers. IMO the main thing (besides lousy battery management) that held up EVs for decades is that very few vehicle buyers cared about the problems they solved. The vast majority of auto buyers don't give a honking hoot about their vehicles' emissions. In solving problems that vehicle buyers didn't care about, EV makers created problems that vehicle buyers DID care about -- range less than a tank of gas's, charging time longer than refueling an ICEV, and high purchase price. (Also, until relatively recently, BIG battery headaches. It used to be that just about every used-EV-for-sale ad said "needs new batteries.") The nations where EVs have had some success have passed laws to create problems that EVs could solve. Some examples of these are carpool lane access, city congestion charges and exclusion days, high taxes on gasoline and Diesel fuel, and high purchase and ownership taxes on ICEVs. They also paid people to buy EVs with direct and indirect subsidies. Wonder of wonders, just as EV proponents predicted 30 years ago, when actually carried out aggressively and consistently, legislative EV promotion worked. (See: Norway.) BTW, don't misunderstand me: I'm not opposed to those incentives! All that said, I can think of one EV manufacturer that's chosen to deal with a few issues that DO somewhat matter to vehicle buyers, issues not engendered by legislation. Those issues include showroom purchase experience, service department experience, and vehicle obsolescence. They may have tackled a few others that I don't know about because I'm not personallly involved with the company or their cars. To solve those problems, they're approaching the business of selling and maintaining vehicles in ways that automakers just don't do -- or at least mostly didn't, until now. Now that, to me, is disruption. YMMV. It's Tesla, and what I think is interesting is that they could probably have been equally disruptive building ICEVs. In fact, they'd probably be making a healthy profit right now if they had. I don't know about you, but I"m glad that they disrupted Detroit's fat, torpid, it's-always-worked-this-way slumber while making EVs. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
