The problem is everyone else followed that.

That strategy worked great for Tesla. It’s seems valid for lucid, although too early to tell. It seems to be working for Rivian but 2026 is what will determine that. These are all early adopters who were able to make a compelling high end vehicle.

But it hasn’t been an effective strategy for legacy manufacturers, those who are late to the party, who are producing same old vehicles with different power train. They don’t seem to notice that too many of their attempts just aren’t compelling

But more importantly the market conditions have changed. There already are compelling high end EVs. They’re not going into an empty market, they are late. EVs have found a niche and companies are supplying it. But what hasn’t happened (at least in the us) is that breakout to mass acceptance. What about the rest of us?

If I want a $100k EV, I have choices so why would I buy some legacy manufacturers half asses first attempt?. If I want a $50k EV I have choices, including those which have already been refined through a couple generations. Cars are slowly working their way into the general market. But if I can only afford a $30k car, where are my choices? Why isn’t ford looking at that market? The market has changed: they need to do their own research and should have gone where the opportunity is rather than copy those before

While I guess I have to applaud the Lightning as an attempt to break open a new market segment, they should have known going in that these are your most conservative customers. They want what they got last time, they’re not trying anything new, and they’re not compromising even in features they never use. It was always going to be tough

What do you mean? The Mach E actually has physical buttons for basically anything you need to do, which isn't the case with many other EVs. You also have a dashboard behind the wheel that shows actual important stuff like your speed, battery, etc. I've driven it a couple times and I have never felt that I need to do anything with that iPad while I'm driving.

What market are you in where it costs over $100k? It's not even that much in Sweden, where cars are usually much more expensive than the US.

I bought a Mach-e back in April, yeah sure, the interior is pretty sparse, but I don't mind, you can pick them up for $30,000 CAD at this point. Biggest plus in the back of my mind is I never have to pay for gas again, I've already saved so much money.

Tesla somehow successfully rebranded minimalism as luxury, and that was spectacular for their bottom line while trying to sell electric vehicles to people for as cheaply as possible, which they absolutely needed to do because widespread adoption was going to be the only thing that would justify the proliferation of charging stations (where the real money is made).

Everybody else who tried to follow Tesla in the EV market (after sitting on their hands for years like idiots) thought the secret sauce was minimalism, when really it was just people compromising on features to have the ability to charge their car for a lot less money than it would have cost to fill it up with gasoline.