> It feels like the transition from a flip phone to an iPhone in 2008.

It seems like the analogy is very apt.

Lots of people pointing out flaws with Tesla's cars and saying that when the incumbents make it into the market they will squash them. Same thing happened with the iPhone - it didn't have multitasking, copy/paste, mms (all things that even standard dumbphones had). Nokia, Blackberry are huge Apple has no chance.

A product can simultaneously be inferior in some (or many) aspects, but still feel somehow be on another plane of feeling like the future.

[product talk aside, Tesla's real problem seems to be execution - can they actually build the damn cars, and can they make a profit on them?]

Tesla needs a “Tim Cook”

> The car, the service, the people, all of it is on a whole higher plane of satisfaction. It feels like the transition from a flip phone to an iPhone in 2008.

Same here. This is how I describe it to other people.

I’m using cars to move me and family from point a to b, the less of service and Tesla people I ever see, the better - and if I ever need to get those things, the faster they get the parts and fix it, the happier I am, as most other car owners I’m sure.

In other words, I don’t get the whole Tesla club thing for basically a glorified metal bucket.

Although for some odd reason I do want Tesla to be my next car.

I get what you're saying, but there is a measurable quality of life increase over an A to B gas-powered car.

* No oil changes

* Charge at home, wake up every morning to a "full tank" for a lot less than it'd cost to fill up with gas

* No gas station fill-ups

* Autopilot is huge for quality of life on highways and in bumper-to-bumper traffic

* I keep the valet key card in my wallet, but there's no physical key that you need to keep with you. My car key was the last one I really needed, so I no longer carry physical keys

* The car has an API, so you can use it to automate various actions (like to start the HVAC system if the car is at work and it's 4:30pm on a weekday). With my normal schedule, the car is already pre-warmed/cooled any time I get in it

* Built-in dashcam includes side cameras, and sentry mode

* Summon, and (soon) enhanced summon

None of that helps if you're driving a loaner while you're waiting for parts, but it's tough to quantitatively measure the impact of just having things like this. And I've got more faith in Tesla to improve logistics in parts sourcing than traditional automakers becoming more like Tesla.

> the less of service and Tesla people I ever see, the better

This is the way Tesla wants it.

In a car dealership world, you're sold a future revenue generator for the dealer, as you're expected to come for routine maintenance.

With Tesla's corporate ownership and generous warranty, the less they see of you (post-purchase), the better it will be for the bottom line.

I suppose any auto manufacturer selling their vehicles direct and owning their service centers outright would have a strong incentive to maintain high reliability, and yet for some reason Tesla remains the only one pursuing that model.

That's what cars were to me too, until I got a Fiat 500e, and it became fun a fun way to do A to B. Which is the only reason I splurged on a german-made "luxury" car afterwards.

I still never want to see service people, or deal with service, and definitely never want to interact with a sales person ever again. Tesla is the best at making that happen. And that A to B is more enjoyable too. It really sounds like you'd be very happy if you bought a Tesla, assuming it's in the budget.

Could that lead be maintained? It was a big jump from a BlackBerry to an original iPhone, but is there one from a Pixel 3 to an iPhone XS?

Does the lead need to be maintained? If everybody else catches up, but does not surpass, that's not a loss and Tesla is still competing. And by then Tesla may be competing at the lower margin segments of the market too.

The fact that they will stay competitive is already priced in, given that Tesla is by market cap about the size of GM and Ford. However, I find some of the loftier predictions of analysts ($1000+/share) somewhat unjustifiable at present.

I wonder if Tesla should not have entered the mass market with the 3 and stuck with the S and X. Higher margins and lower CapEx there.

I think people routinely overestimate the ability of auto-manufacturers to innovate.

In 2013 Tesla won (by a wide margin) the Consumer Reports rating for the best infotainment system. It turned out that a lot of owners loved large, fast, responsive touch screens for viewing maps, navigation, controlling multimedia and vehicle settings.

You'd think that everybody in the car business would be elbowing one another to introduce a better, brighter, faster, more colorful and capable infotainment system, given a clear product market fit.

Yet the winner for that Consumer Reports award did not change in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 or 2018.

I’ve been driving an x for the last three years, but we also have a 2013 odyssey and decided to upgrade that to the 2019 version.

It’s insane how archaic it feels after getting used to a Tesla. Now, an odyssey isn’t a luxury vehicle or anything, but it is the top of the line car from Honda and it really just feels like hot trash now..