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Mercedes Head: Tesla Has No Network, Limited Potential (Forbes Article)

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Mercedes Head: Tesla Has No Network, Limited Potential - Forbes


It seems that Mercedes and other have noticed how many 100k + cars Tesla is selling.
The following are a few of the most telling quote in my opinion.



"Folks are buying a Tesla now because they’re kind of cool, but if you’re a Tesla buyer, you have to have multiple cars,” Cannon said
...
“Tesla is great, but you’ve got plenty of well-established brands that mean luxury, like Porsche or Mercedes-Benz, and how long do you think we’re going to wait and let Tesla be out there alone [selling premium electric cars]?” he said. “So, good job, Tesla, but will they be able to maintain that with the others of us out in the market? That remains to be seen.”
...

"and the potential of fully electric vehicles for the rest of my life and a good portion of the rest of your life will be limited,” he said.


My bolding here.
 
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What a sourpuss. I don't get Mercedes at all; on one hand, they invest in Tesla to keep it alive, continue to maintain a sizable stake and even have a limited technological partnership. OTOH, there's all this badmouthing and naysaying when they see that Tesla's eating their lunch in some markets and market segments.
 
It's interesting how the comments section of these articles call out the misinformation now. I think it has been interesting seeing this change over time. More and more people are waking up to the fact that EVs are the way forward and Tesla has had a large part to play in making this happen. I only hope that this starts to happen in Australia when they start to be sold here. There are still a lot of stupid comments in Aussie EV articles at the moment.
 
Mercedes Head: Tesla Has No Network, Limited Potential - Forbes


It seems that Mercedes and other have noticed how many 100k + cars Tesla is selling.
The following are a few of the most telling quote in my opinion.



Folks are buying a Tesla now because they’re kind of cool, but if you’re a Tesla buyer, you have to have multiple cars,” Cannon said

“Tesla is great, but you’ve got plenty of well-established brands that mean luxury, like Porsche or Mercedes-Benz, and how long do you think we’re going to wait and let Tesla be out there alone [selling premium electric cars]?” he said. “So, good job, Tesla, but will they be able to maintain that with the others of us out in the market? That remains to be seen.”


"and the potential of fully electric vehicles for the rest of my life and a good portion of the rest of your life will be limited,” he said.
IMO the bold statement is quite telling. In my view it is representative of the most of ice manufacturers' chiefs attitude. Most people that steer these businesses seem to be of similar demographic. Most of them invested their working lives in ice technology, and achieved significant successes. There is a lot of incentive for them to keep doing what they are doing.

They seem to lack incentive to steer their businesses to a different direction.

They bet that "the potential of fully electric vehicles for the rest of my life and a good portion of the rest of your life will be limited ”.

My bet is that their bet might pay off for them. They might stay the course, drag their feet until happy retirement and leave to someone else to do the hard work of transitioning to a new better technology.
 
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I would love to see a viable electric car from Mercedes - that would be great. So yea, if he could shut up and deliver, that would be great...

(When is that electric B-Class available everywhere? And how is it more than just a CA compliance car?)
 
It is a bit like this Daimler AG (USA) (DDAIF) news: Tesla Motors draws criticism in Germany - Seeking Alpha

In the criticism they blame Tesla for building SC's that are only of use for Tesla cars. And of course, there should be some kind of standard so all cars can use them.

But what are we talking about? There must be over a 1000 charging stations/point in Germany now and there will be another 1000 coming period.

There are at this moment 4 ! SC operational and some under construction. There may be eventually round 40 SC's in Germany (I hope so) , mostly located for long distance traveling. The locations are not interesting for EV's with 100-150 km range at Autobahn speed.

So we speak of 1 SC next to 50 other charging places. So what's the problem? Not the SC, that is entirely build buy, paid for and kept operational by de Tesla community. No, the problem is the car itself.

Then we come back to the beginning of this thread. Of course the manufacturers of ICE are worried. While charging at a SC in Bad Rappenau a Porsche driver came to me and wanted to see the car's inside and outside. His "final words" were that this would be his next car. This happens more.

Remember the take-over by the compactdisc and the DVD? Complete change didn't happen in one day but it is a matter of time.
 
We've always known that this wouldn't (and hasn't) happened overnight. Elon has a way of making people like this eat their words. Tesla isn't meant to be a luxury car company. Gen 3 and beyond has always been the goal. Efficiency, environmental friendliness, and the awesome sales model not withstanding. Driving electric is just better. It's addictive on so many levels.
This is why I let people drive my car. Underestimate the impact of Gen 3 at your own peril if you're a big automaker. If Tesla achieves the range and price point, they're simply gonna fly off the shelves.
Corporate suits puking out the pablum that their bosses want to hear wont stop us.
 
We've seen this kind of talk before...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

Yes we have. Not only with Microsoft. I do think it is ironic that Bill Gates was worried about keeping up with new paradigms from the very start, but Microsoft fell into the trap anyway.

The railroads were another example. They were convinced that most passengers would never fly.

GSP

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I would love to see a viable electric car from Mercedes - that would be great. So yea, if he could shut up and deliver, that would be great...

(When is that electric B-Class available everywhere? And how is it more than just a CA compliance car?)

If Daimler wants the electric B-class to be a success, they better get working on adding DC fast charging. This is a glaring omission in an otherwise nice car, and an example of ICE-centric thinking.

GSP
 
I'm reminded of this:

Headline: CBC News June 21st, 1996
The head of a leading photography research centre thinks the 35mm film camera will be world's most popular camera for at least another two decades.

Peter Frise, CEO of Kodak Research, a national research and development network at the University of Windsor, expects ISO 400 film to still be the No. 1 camera film until at least 2015.

...

Frise called the current Kodak DC50 a "great toy camera in full sunlight."

"But wouldn't be suitable for shooting your kids prom photos," Frise said. "The present generation of digital cameras is often not able to meet those needs. They just don't have enough pixels or shoot fast enough.

"The band of people who can use them on a daily basis is relatively small. We at Kodak are going to bet our futures on chemical film. It's ISO 400 until we die."
 
I suppose his remarks don't surprise me but if Cannon is looking at the world objectively the evidence suggests quite clearly that ICE's are a dying breed and Mercedes ICE's along with them. The pressures on developing sustainable energy supplies will mount rapidly, especially as the consequences of climate change mount, and a tax on carbon, which is inevitable, will push the costs of fossil fuels where they deserve to be -- out of reach for most. But I suppose he has to defend the status quo, since it pays his high salary.
 
It is a bit like this Daimler AG (USA) (DDAIF) news: Tesla Motors draws criticism in Germany - Seeking Alpha

In the criticism they blame Tesla for building SC's that are only of use for Tesla cars. And of course, there should be some kind of standard so all cars can use them.

If you go to the actual source of the news (three articles going into the sources) you end up here:

http://www.automobilwoche.de/articl...ierten-diskussionen-beschaftigen#.U0_BHFckTKc

Bosch is providing services to car makers and would like to offer its own charging network software. That's why they complain... (and nope I never found a reference to this 'complaint' anywhere prominent in German news). The actual 'complaint' is an answer to the question of "why can't others not come up with the superchargers?" to which is answer is (quite correctly) that it would not make sense to have a million different standards...

Bosch's argument all reminds me a bit of this XKCD here:
standards.png
 
I would not be surprised if Daimler AG has a different outlook.
I would be. It is extremely evident by the cars they release that there isn't another company in the world that "gets it" like Tesla. Every "extended range electric" (translated: hybrid) and every electric with a useless range they release just goes to prove that they don't understand where the world is going. Tesla is 10 years ahead of the industry, but instead of playing catch up, the industry is busy arguing that they don't need to.
I'm not expecting any of these behemoths to fail any time soon, but you can bet they'll be dragging their ICE feet as long as they can possibly get away with.