Forcing people into being more eco-friendly — Tesla’s strategy.
Convenience is key.
Let’s face it.
Americans are not going to give up their big cars, centrally-air-conditioned houses or their Chinese-made iPhone Xs to make sure polar bears in the arctic have ice to live on.
People love comfort. They love modern amenities and telling them to simply switch off the air-con when they go out or use less water by taking shorter showers is not something a lot of people are willing to do simply because it is inconvenient.
No.
Until water starts pouring in from our coasts, or the temperature soars to unlivable temperatures, people aren’t going to realize that personally saving energy and natural resources is an important step to building a sustainable future.
But there’s another way…
Apple knows this.
In the pre-iTunes era, people pirated music A LOT. It was rampant, it happened in broad daylight. It seemed like a problem that was impossible to solve.
But pirating music was a fairly tedious and time consuming process. That was a weakness Apple exploited.
When iTunes came out, people bought into it simple because it was so much more convenient than downloading pirated music. It was more than worth the money they were paying for it.
Apple made the music industry ethical again — by making the buying process more convenient.
Tesla has been doing something similar in the past six years.
In the past, electric cars were slow, ugly, expensive and generally awful. The worst part however, was the limited range and the anxiety that came with it. Charge times were high, ranges were low.
Tesla’s are still expensive (although the basic Model 3 is fairly priced).
But no longer do you have to put up with any of the traditional issues that older EVs faced.
You can charge your car at an incredibly high speed and have it run for a few hundred miles.
It also offers a few advantages specifically over a gas powered car. Gas powered cars have tons of moving parts and require maintenance. Tesla’s don’t require servicing as often since the only moving part is the motor. Add to that the fact that electricity is far cheaper than gasoline and you have an amazing value-for-money proposition in front of you.
It’s an all round amazing product.
But it’s also eco-friendly — more than a gas powered car anyway.
Customers who don’t give a damn about the environment are buying them because they’re convenient, upscale and genuinely good products.
And in doing so, they’re being more eco-friendly whether they realize it or not.
This is the solution.
PSA’s, speeches, rallies and activism are fine and all, but they don’t have anywhere near the impact that a good product does.
People are never going to give up their comforts.
But what if they don’t need to?
What if the solution is to just give the people a better product?
