Tesla has quickly become a household name as the ultimate car company of the future. The obvious reason for this is the fact that they make the best electric cars in the world. This is beyond dispute. Porsche's first and recent electric car attempt is the closest competition so far, but it falls short on several high bars that Tesla has already set, like battery range, software and self-driving.
Porsche's entry into the electric car market certainly isn't the most significant to date. Nissan, arguably has the most electric cars out on the road today. They've been at it for a long while now with the boring LEAF. However, no one would ever associate Nissan with the words Cool, Futuristic and Tech. Besides Porsche's entry into the gauntlet that Tesla dominates, there have been other new entrants into the market, like Audi with the E-Tron and Jaguar, with the I-Pace. Both falling way short of the Tesla Bar. Let's not forget BMW's I Series - an uninspiring series indeed.
So what makes Tesla stand out from the crowd?
Well, that's pretty obvious. It's several things. It's minimalistic/futuristic design, it's subtle and effective branding strategy that has placed it, in a very short time, into the luxury-status-symbol category. But at its core, the one thing that allows Tesla to sit at the top of the throne right now and for the foreseeable future is their approach to building and shaping the software technology behind the cars they produce. Tesla has basically been run like a software start-up that's focused purely on the future and all it has to offer. There's a reason why the car feels like an iPhone with wheels. Tesla is so far ahead of the competition from a technological standpoint. All new entrants don't stand a chance at catching up on Tesla's capabilities. It makes you wonder why the top car manufacturers have been asleep for so long.
Just like your iPhone collects data on on your location and your health stats, or like how google collects data on your search behavior and browser activity, Tesla collects a ton of data on every single Tesla on the road. Most of this data is being collected to feed its machine learning algorithms so they can someday perfect the AI necessary for full self-driving. Every Tesla on the road is already capable of full self-driving, but the technology is certainly not ready for primetime due to safety issues and much needed regulations. A show case of Tesla's current autonomous capabilities are simply amazing. The Summon and AutoPilot are things you'd never have thought possible.
The Long Game...
Tesla's isn't simply benefiting from 'first mover's advantage', they are killing and exploiting it. I can see a day where Porsche or BMW can compete with Tesla in terms of driving performance, they have the advantage due to their history and expertise. However, I do not see the old car companies every catching up to advanced software capabilities of Tesla. It can only happen when and if Tesla begins to sell its software to its competitors. I believe this is the long goal of Tesla - to become the software operating system for cars.
I think I've just convinced myself to buy some Tesla stock.