海角大神

Albert Einstein once said:聽 鈥淢ake everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.鈥澛� Pundits always pursue the former, but often fail to uphold the latter.

Such has been the case recently in regards to the prospects for electric vehicles.聽 Will electric vehicles be commercially successful or won鈥檛 they?聽 As often happens, there is superficial evidence supporting both sides of the argument.

On one hand, you have聽Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:聽 TSLA).聽 Tesla recently聽announced that it had achieved its first quarterly profit, on the back of better-than-forecasted sales聽of its new聽Model S聽sedan.

On the other hand, you have聽Fisker Automotive.聽 At the same time that Tesla was releasing good news, Fisker was making waves with its聽drastic downsizing, laying off 75% of its workforce.聽 Fisker鈥檚 main model, the Karma, is probably unfortunately named, as the company is certainly beset with misfortune these days.聽

Fisker鈥檚 bad news made more headlines than Tesla鈥檚 good news, in part because Fisker has received financial support from the U.S. government, and was thus being聽lambasted by some as the 鈥渘ext Solyndra鈥�.聽 (In part, also, because bad news seems to get more attention than good news.)

So, why is Tesla doing fairly well while Fisker is definitely not?聽 This聽comparison between the twomakes a strong case that Tesla simply has a better all-around product at a more attractive price than Fisker.

Moreover, it is said by many observers that Tesla has pursued a different fundamental approach to business than Fisker.聽 Fisker started by designing a wholly-new electric vehicle that looks cool 鈥� and the Karma is by all accounts beautiful 鈥� but only much later turned to considering how to actually manufacture it.聽 As a result, the costs and complexity of the car ballooned.聽 It鈥檚 a big challenge to source and manage thousands of parts from many vendors.聽 (It didn鈥檛 help Fisker when their main battery supplier,聽A123 Systems, had performance issues with their products and then went belly-up.)

In contrast, Tesla focused solely on developing an electric vehicle drivetrain, including the battery packs, and then outsourcing design as much as possible to other companies expert in the car business, and then focusing on making the integration/assembly of all the relevant systems as low-cost as possible.聽 (However, it鈥檚 an聽been documented to be an oversimplification聽to say, as some have, that Tesla鈥檚 initial model, the聽Roadster, is simply a聽Lotus Elise聽with an electric drivetrain.)

Time will tell if Tesla will be a long-term survivor.聽 No question:聽 succeeding as a start-up car company is very difficult.聽 However, Tesla may have turned the corner.

Clearly, though, there鈥檚 a long way to go and plenty of opportunities for critics to pile on.聽 In the wake of some bad press in February, when聽a聽New York Times聽reporter wrote a famously negative review of the Model S, Tesla still must fight the headwinds of skepticism about electric vehicles as a major automotive force.

Fisker鈥檚 woes don鈥檛 help.聽 For the too-populous segment of oversimplifiers out there, it鈥檚 easy to extrapolate Fisker鈥檚 plight to other electric vehicle companies, particularly if they have a reason to want to make the sector look bad.聽 To illustrate, Sarah Palin piled on by lumping Tesla with Fisker and聽calling them both as 鈥渓osers鈥�.

Tesla will do well to distance itself from Fisker as much and as quickly as possible, as they really do have a different tale to tell.