Punx0r - you are absolutely right, American chauvinism doesn't sell well overseas - please understand that's my pride in seeing the US automotive industry rebound, but it certainly isn't a Tesla sales pitch, just my humble opinion. If it is any consolation, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting Maranello and I think there are beautiful cars coming out of Italy, Germany and the UK - I would be quite happy in a MacLaren, Jag F Type, Porsche 918 or Ferrari 458...I would just have no place for the kids.
You are also right on that people make decisions on super luxury vehicles based on irrational factors. Does a Mercedes Maybach really need a 500 hp twin turbo...no, of course not...but you clearly understand what Chalo won't recognize which is this thing called "Fantasy marketing". As another example, for years Jeep has been running ads with the tagline "Only in a Jeep" with videos of a guy driving to the top of a rocky outcropping in the desert southwest. Nowadays these types of ads are just CGI, but years ago ad agencies went to great lengths to get vehicles into places where they certainly didn't belong (like National Parks and designated scenic monuments). The irony is that by and large Jeep SUV's are grocery getters for soccer moms, not vehicles made to explore the outer reaches (not unlike the Land Rovers prattling about the upscale neighborhoods of the UK and US). Of course the Mini Cooper is doing the same thing with Dakar.
Chalo, I understand your distaste for the "faster and furious" bunch, but Americans love their cars. You aren't going to change it, and no politician will survive trying to confiscate or limit raw horsepower. You can see for yourself the flop of the Google "self driving car" vs. the excitement of the Tesla "autopilot". Americans love to drive. With autopilot they get the best of both worlds, they can turn on an autopilot and make a phone call or surf the web when they are stuck in 5mph traffic, or if they please they can also duck and weave to get around a jam or a slow truck if they want to. I might suggest that people take pride in driving and playing the game, and dodging traffic to get home faster; the people who would rather not play that game are probably already riding the train or the metro.
If you want clean technologies to win you have to captivate a person's sense of excitement and pleasure from great performance, not try to tell people that they are wrong to feel the adrenaline of a 3 or 4 second zero to sixty time. We tried to change human nature once, it was called prohibition...didn't work out too well. The better plan is to captivate the senses with better engineering, performance and design - and then improve safety with things like traction control, digital electric AWD, an ultra low center of gravity and 1G skidpad, and the best safety rating of any vehicle ever tested in history. Tesla does all of those things.
Where EV's or Hybrids win is when the beauty and performance of their design blows away legacy ICE solutions, when a kid's bedroom wall has a Tesla, a Zero motorcycle, or a Hybrid i8/Porsche 918 or LaFerrari as they do today we are on the right track.
You are also right on that people make decisions on super luxury vehicles based on irrational factors. Does a Mercedes Maybach really need a 500 hp twin turbo...no, of course not...but you clearly understand what Chalo won't recognize which is this thing called "Fantasy marketing". As another example, for years Jeep has been running ads with the tagline "Only in a Jeep" with videos of a guy driving to the top of a rocky outcropping in the desert southwest. Nowadays these types of ads are just CGI, but years ago ad agencies went to great lengths to get vehicles into places where they certainly didn't belong (like National Parks and designated scenic monuments). The irony is that by and large Jeep SUV's are grocery getters for soccer moms, not vehicles made to explore the outer reaches (not unlike the Land Rovers prattling about the upscale neighborhoods of the UK and US). Of course the Mini Cooper is doing the same thing with Dakar.
Chalo, I understand your distaste for the "faster and furious" bunch, but Americans love their cars. You aren't going to change it, and no politician will survive trying to confiscate or limit raw horsepower. You can see for yourself the flop of the Google "self driving car" vs. the excitement of the Tesla "autopilot". Americans love to drive. With autopilot they get the best of both worlds, they can turn on an autopilot and make a phone call or surf the web when they are stuck in 5mph traffic, or if they please they can also duck and weave to get around a jam or a slow truck if they want to. I might suggest that people take pride in driving and playing the game, and dodging traffic to get home faster; the people who would rather not play that game are probably already riding the train or the metro.
If you want clean technologies to win you have to captivate a person's sense of excitement and pleasure from great performance, not try to tell people that they are wrong to feel the adrenaline of a 3 or 4 second zero to sixty time. We tried to change human nature once, it was called prohibition...didn't work out too well. The better plan is to captivate the senses with better engineering, performance and design - and then improve safety with things like traction control, digital electric AWD, an ultra low center of gravity and 1G skidpad, and the best safety rating of any vehicle ever tested in history. Tesla does all of those things.
Where EV's or Hybrids win is when the beauty and performance of their design blows away legacy ICE solutions, when a kid's bedroom wall has a Tesla, a Zero motorcycle, or a Hybrid i8/Porsche 918 or LaFerrari as they do today we are on the right track.
