It's often brought up that Tesla's direct competition has the technical capacity to produce model S and X killers and it's only a matter of time until Mercedes, BMW, Lexus crush the upstart american New kid.
There's a social/organizational problem with that scenario though. I think it's not a coincidence that none of the concept cars and new products by competitors are directly aimed at Tesla. The reason may be that Tesla targets their mainline high end products and if they responded directly with model S and X killers, the immediate effect would be to cannibalize sales from their own highest profit and prestige lines.
The revolutionary nature of the model S platform means that much of the engineering expertise of the traditional car companies doesn't apply. There's no question they have the capacity to do it...but not without effectively hiring a lot of new people and spending a lot of money earned by the existing workforce who would justifiably see themselves as working to pay for their own replacements.
I think a lot of the internal arguments that lead to decisions to make complex hybrids that just layer electric drive on top of conventional systems are motivated ultimately by the fear that a pure electric platform is a threat to much of the current workforce.
Tesla has been very open about it's designs and plans for years but the competition insisted that it was just another entry in the "electric car market" rather than a car targeting their top models that happened to be electric. The idea that there is a tiny market of greens that wants electric cars to save the planet and that's all they have to be concerned with has been a great comfort. With Tesla outselling over $70k BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Jaguar, Audi in the US right out of the gate, that comforting worldview is being challenged, but it's still an open question as to whether their fear of cannibalism will hold back real change.
There's a social/organizational problem with that scenario though. I think it's not a coincidence that none of the concept cars and new products by competitors are directly aimed at Tesla. The reason may be that Tesla targets their mainline high end products and if they responded directly with model S and X killers, the immediate effect would be to cannibalize sales from their own highest profit and prestige lines.
The revolutionary nature of the model S platform means that much of the engineering expertise of the traditional car companies doesn't apply. There's no question they have the capacity to do it...but not without effectively hiring a lot of new people and spending a lot of money earned by the existing workforce who would justifiably see themselves as working to pay for their own replacements.
I think a lot of the internal arguments that lead to decisions to make complex hybrids that just layer electric drive on top of conventional systems are motivated ultimately by the fear that a pure electric platform is a threat to much of the current workforce.
Tesla has been very open about it's designs and plans for years but the competition insisted that it was just another entry in the "electric car market" rather than a car targeting their top models that happened to be electric. The idea that there is a tiny market of greens that wants electric cars to save the planet and that's all they have to be concerned with has been a great comfort. With Tesla outselling over $70k BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Jaguar, Audi in the US right out of the gate, that comforting worldview is being challenged, but it's still an open question as to whether their fear of cannibalism will hold back real change.
