Tesla is selling 7 products and the remaining 4 needed to end fossil fuel are announced including 3 that apparently have essentially completed designs and impending launch windows. The final product (pick up) is special for Musk as it has so much brand, mind share and symbolic value. It is the literal and symbolic shift in how work gets done in the world to green. We've seen Tesla's "stretch" showing that with two products in every area Tesla can dominate where Tesla sets a standard that cancels the sales of other makers and forces their hands. Sometimes it needs less than 2 products as is the case with the new Roadster. Tesla started out with a proof of concept Roadster- one might consider the older out of production the 2nd in the paring. Tesla sells regular solar panels and solar roofs. These two coupled with Tesla residential or commercial storage ( batteries as two more product lines) will beat any fossil fuel arrangement on cost, cost stability/predictability and reliability and do this on a decreasing cost curve. These products are already well below where fossil fuels can go even in theory while avoiding the externalities and political exposure and associated risk while constantly price reducing- again where fossil fuels are already priced out and cannot go lower even with massive fossil fuel subsidies and massive externalities that the Tesla products lack. Cars: S and Model 3 cover the range. A smaller car than the Model 3 turns out not to be necessary as Model 3 is already hitting Civic buyers and for Tesla network Model 3 is about as small as one would want to go. A key principle is that people were going smaller to reduce cost and increase economy but with AV, electric reliability and efficiency people don't have to compromise on space or efficiency to do this. SUVs X and Y do the stretch and the stretch keeps Tesla's manufacturing costs lower. Need a micro bus or van (?) then take the seats out of either or go with the Tesla pick up- surely after-market will enclose the bed space if need be- or maybe Tesla offers a shell. Like to see a solar shell. Pickup and Semi It is especially the case it seems that people compromise and buy a smaller ICE truck over total cost of ownership issues especially in the face of the loss leader value shifting that ICE makers engage in to try to shift value and buyers to heavier higher drag coefficient vehicles to drive up fossil fuel consumption (a scam worse than diesel gate)- none of that applies to Tesla products the inherent value proposition in the TCO overides and even more so when other Tesla products are added. Here again Tesla can dominate and completely set the pace with 2 models in a winner take all kind of pattern that forces the capacity elsewhere to adapt. Fossil fuel semis simply will not be competitive ever again and will be quickly dropped., Same thing with Tesla pick up, Tesla just needs to offer the same Truck at various price points and basic package options to cover span other makes needed at least 3 separate models to cover. The semi in convoys will even hit rail. That leaves aviation but Air Bus and others are pushing hard here- full quick switch is a matter of battery density. Drone cargo is already coming. There is also Lilium type projects which portend safe quiet trips and also hyperloop as a potential competitor for air as even in freight its costs presumably would be much lower. I didn't include hyper loop in the announced products. And of course electric boats are nothing new and batteries capacity will hit both boats and aviation. Boats will presumably be covered in solar panels at some point- hyper loop could be as well. Tesla's battery products should be a drop in replacement in vehicles with electric drive including locomotives and many dump trucks, and ships. Electric fork lifts are already common suggesting that electric tractors are coming quickly as seen by projects by JD and Caterpillar including CAT battery investment. Musk has hinted about Tesla home HVAC- and that makes so much sense in terms of applying tesla quality to a home battery system and roof top solar cells. Makes sense if Tesla offered full home retrofit to hit all major appliances and get rid of all fossil fuel items in the conversion including HVAC, water heater, washer, dryer and range with integrated smart home options. A lot of this highlights how important the Model 3 was and is because beyond cellphones it creates the mindshare and conditioning in the consumer mind about the superiority of smart solid state electric devices. It is only crime that keeps fossil fuels going now. Little acts of treason and graft based on financial hostage taking are all that keep fossil fuels going now but they get exposed as the misappropriations become gross enough even beyond the grossness of fossil fuel subsides and stupid secret energy policy.
I love this vision of the future, and I hope it pans out. What do you mean by 'stretch' in this context? I also think you discount vans and microbuses too quickly. You're also missing box trucks and other in-town delivery vehicles. In the near future, the former are still the best options for families to go camping, and the later are the best options for urban deliveries and goods transport. Possibly drones could replace these some day, but it seems a ways off to me. I expect fleet vehicles like UPS trucks will go BEV at some point, but not with current range allowed with today's batteries. Maybe in a few years. There's still no BEV RVs available, and only a tiny handful of utility vehicles (such as Via Motors vans and trucks). Telling a family to just put a bed in the back of a pickup truck won't work for everyone. The VW BEV microbus seems promising to me, we'll have to see how it goes. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Stretch is the reality that Tesla products represent radically superior value and utility and therefore cross over the artificial product divisions set up in particular by US firms making fail on cue profit first mobiles designed to get people to pay more than intended to for less than they expected. I see your points about vehicle configurations. I hope aftermarket will help but I also see you only have to nail the critical mass of the market to bring down the weak US and EU firms. Those companies suck because they are about nothing more than moving fossil fuels- its really a deep collusive corruption on the order of hereditary power. The most viable thing they have going is the Porsche Taycan but even that is bs because 1. compliance numbers even for boutique maker 2. an idiotic long tail pipe charging scam. VW believes its customers are idiots.
