TDI Tesla ?

[nimblemotors]

Fisker failed because they ran out of money.
Tesla failed because they ran out of money.
Volt failed because they ran out of money.

Two of these failures were prevented by the US Government,
one of them also by Toyota and having a Billionaire owner.

[freebeard]

nimblemotors -- That's three for three. Which one is which?

Originally Posted by UltArc

Not discussing price (140k vs 60k), how is it...?

Maybe you answered your own question. I thought it was because there was a flood in New York City and Newark and 300 unsold cars were lost.

Fisker loses over 300 Karmas in Sandy floods at Port Newark

Tesla made an EV conversion of the Lotus Elise as proof of concept and then engineered a whole new everything.

[Arragonis]

All those cars were insured. Probably easier to claim that than have to sell and support the things.

[niky]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I know that Top Gear story is supposed to be funny, but it just makes me sad.

If you follow EVTV's work on fast charging (they favor CHAdeMO over Tesla's Supercharger) you find that trying to dump 20-40 kilowatt/hr into a car in 20 minutes is akin to getting hit by a bolt of lightning.

DailyKanban's Ed Niedermeyer attended UofO, where Douglas C. Niedermeyer appeared in the movie Animal House. Related? But the part was played by Mark Metcalf.

A sure way to irritate him is to bring that up. I recall one auto industry official did when answering criticism posed in one of his articles.

Rather childish, actually, and a way to mask the fact that he had no good answer.

-

The generator issue might or might not be a systemic issue. It could just be laziness on the post of attendants, rather than a policy shortcoming.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by UltArc

That doesn't answer why the systems are not as successful.

It really doesn't have much to do with the systems, per se, but as you said, with the market niches - and, in the case of Fisker, the company management.

Tesla started off by building a high performance sports car, for which there was (and is) a niche market at the price they sold it for. Then they built a high-performance 4-door sedan, for which there is another niche market at their price.

Fisker built a high-performance sedan, for which there wasn't much market. The Volt - which is far from a failure, BTW - sits in almost exactly the same market niche as the Prius & Gen 2 Insight, at a higher price.

[niky]

Tesla's success is a marketing success. They sold not just a product, but an idea.

It's arguable that the Fisker Karma occupies the same niche as the Tesla Model S (albeit at a different price point). The market was there, but Fisker didn't capitalize on it.

Only Elon Musk knows how well off or how dead Tesla would be now if not for his money... but he is undeniably great at promoting it.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by niky

Only Elon Musk knows how well off or how dead Tesla would be now if not for his money... but he is undeniably great at promoting it.

There isn't much that will become a success without initial investment, and a certain degree of promotion.