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Can BMW Fend Off The Charge of the Tesla Model 3? Part 2

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My concept 2020 BMW i5. BMW's answer to Tesla's Model 3 (shown in Moloughney Red) Designed in conjunction with BMWBLOG In last week's post , we looked at the impact that Tesla's Model S has had on the sales of competing vehicles in the large luxury segment in the US. That set the table for the question of whether or not the Model 3 can have equal or perhaps even greater success in the entry level, premium segment when it hits the streets sometime in the end of 2017 or early 2018. That segment has been owned by BMW's 3-Series for decades, and BMW isn't going to just give it up without a fight. But what exactly can they do? The Model 3 has captured the imagination of the public and Tesla has received over 400,000 reservations in the first three weeks since the reservation process has opened. That staggering number has undoubtedly caused a few sleepless nights for product planners of various OEMs. In fact, if we look at theory of Diffusion of Innovations , the inte...

Can BMW Fend Off The Charge of the Tesla Model 3? Part 1

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Two years ago a wrote I post suggesting that Tesla and BMW would eventually face off .  That's clearly going to happen with the launch of Tesla's Model 3. We’ve all seen upcoming products being described with buzzwords like “revolutionary” and “disruptive” that later translate into something much less successful after the public actually gets a chance to experience them. I can remember the hype leading up to the launch of Dean Kamen’s Segway back in 2001 when Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos boldly predicted, “Cities would be built around (it).”  While the Segway has enjoyed some success, it never really penetrated the market much beyond specialized uses, like transportation for police departments, guided tours, and theme parks. On the other side of the coin we can look at what the evolution of the cellular phone has done for communication, and what the digital camera has done for photography and the film industry. Both products revolutionized their respective industries ...