Dear Mr. Hensch, that’s why you should hold out for Tesla!

I read your article from this week with great interest. Your core message is that people praise new, supposedly environmentally friendly technologies to the skies and don’t look very closely at whether they are really environmentally friendly. And that any criticism of such concepts is blindly beaten to death. You compared Tesla to plastic bags (Swiss German for tear-off plastic bags in the supermarket). That was funny but also kind of nasty. Because I maintain that these strong reactions to criticism of Tesla are only remotely related to environmental protection.

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Let’s get this out of the way right away. I am not writing this here because I presume to want to lecture you. It’s not my place to do so, nor could I. Nevertheless, I would like to take up and highlight a few points about the Tesla hype that I think have been somewhat overlooked in your comment. Because how arguments are made is usually not the same as why arguments are made at all.

And at the risk of putting me in the Tesla fanboy corner right now: Yes, I also think Tesla is great and so I will probably have one in my garage next year. As a long-time, exclusive BMW driver, you don’t do things like that without emotion or lightly. But there are reasons:

Environmental friendliness

To be honest, I’m happy to accept environmental friendliness if it’s there. But if not, so what? I’m completely with you when you say that Teslas are no more environmentally friendly than petrol cars on balance. I know about the valuable work of your organization and trust your expertise completely.

Of the many Tesla drivers I’ve spoken to so far, there hasn’t been a single one for whom environmental friendliness is the top criterion. People who are serious about being environmentally friendly beyond their own comfort zone every day take the train. Walk. Buy local beer from the cheese store around the corner with their trailer. Even if it rains or snows.

That’s not my world. I, and I would say the majority of Tesla drivers, are more of the “buy organic vegetables in the supermarket” type. If it has “environmentally friendly” in its range, why not, otherwise just not.

This car

The car is simply great. Unfortunately, it has to be said. The acceleration you mentioned is not necessarily the core feature. I can also get that with a Porsche.

What makes this car different is that it is fundamentally a software-based concept. While all previous cars were more like the old Nokias or Blackberrys, the Tesla is the automotive industry’s equivalent of a smartphone. Modular, configurable and expandable.

I think that, combined with a design that strikes the right balance between extravagance and suitability for everyday use, and classic things like driving performance, is what makes this car so fascinating. If BMW were to bring out the same car, even if only as a gasoline engine, it would be a huge success.

The courage to set off into a completely different world

And this is where we come to the real core issue: I have the feeling that most “Tesla disciples” (our perceptions overlap) buy the product in large part because they are fed up with the “old economy”. This confusion of small improvements to an existing technology with innovation, which should be a real paradigm shift.

Because what is the alternative? No more driving, stay on the gasoline track? It’s easy to criticize something without coming up with cogent counter-proposals.

“Mob of those satisfied with the status quo”

And innovation doesn’t have that much to do with reality. The world thrives on someone standing up and coming up with something that everyone else thinks is unrealistic. I deal with large corporations on a daily basis and you wouldn’t believe how many great ideas are nipped in the bud because the “mob of those satisfied with the status quo” collectively agree on the classification “not realistic”. For this reason, coupled with the sweet poison of bubbling revenue streams, the automotive industry fails to create a fundamentally different, i.e. better, product.

We can talk about luck, there are occasionally people who, with more luck than sense, manage to achieve a little financial independence and then don’t squander it on an island with a “dolce vita”, but instead put everything on one card to show the world that it is possible to realize the “non-realistic” after all. Elon Musk is such a person.

Like Howard Hughes before him, for example, he is a pioneer for the adaptation of technology in society. True disruption is not only driven by technology, but also to the same extent by people who see “not possible” as a friendly hint. And who (can) ignore it and use and advance new technology. That is the fascination and myth of “Tesla”. SpaceX, the other Musk company, follows the same pattern.

This attitude then produces features like the one in the video here. And as consumers, we have to ask ourselves why the long-established car industry hasn’t thought of this? Can’t they build Falcon Wing doors? Hardly. But they don’t have the culture in the company that allows this.

The more radical a product, the more radical its disciples

You can imagine that it is precisely this fact that convinces an avowed “child of technology” like me more than anything else to buy a Tesla. I know from conversations that many Tesla drivers feel the same way.

Radical products usually produce radical followers. Tesla is no different. And I think this missionary approach is simply too much of a good thing. However, the reactions to the article are completely logical. As soon as something is dogmatized, an objective, differentiated discourse is no longer possible.

To cut a long story short: thank you for your article. I think it’s important that we have a differentiated discussion about new technologies and products and that we also acknowledge and take criticism seriously. The unresolved problems with batteries in particular need to be taken seriously. And find solutions. Even if they are perhaps called fuel cells and don’t come from Tesla.

With best regards
Alain Veuve