We are now witnessing Elon Musk’s slow-motion disruption of the global auto industry | Alternative Energy | Forums

Could you imagine if musk bought GM and converted their whole line up to EV

In 2007, Nokia was the biggest and most fashionable name in cell phones, with an unassailable lead in hand-held technology. Things had been so good for so long that company executives saw little chance for any competitive challenge–phones were a tough business, they said, and Nokia was reaping the harvest of decades of hard work that no one else could hope to match.

That June, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. And seven years later, Nokia—worth a quarter of a trillion dollars at its apex—abjectly sold offits much-diminished phone division to Microsoft. The price was $7 billion, less than 3% of its former value.

Apple hasn’t introduced as revolutionary a product since, to the relief of incumbent players in all kinds of sectors. But Elon Musk, whose acumen and showmanship get him frequently compared with Jobs, has worked eagerly to fill the void.

On March 31, his Tesla Motors unveiled its long-promised Model 3, a $35,000 electric car that will go 215 miles per charge. The market response suggests to some the potential as a category killer, not just in electric vehicles, but mainstream cars in general: in the week since, more than 325,000 Model 3s have been pre-ordered by people putting down $1,000 per reservation, the company said April 7.

Even deep Tesla skeptics call this demand unprecedented. There simply may be no example of a new car attracting as much interest in more than a century of automative history. Veteran auto analyst Bertel Schmidt says the closest comparison would be the 1955 Citroen DS(below), which was pre-ordered by 12,000 motorists on launch day. Wall Street has responded by sending Tesla’s share price up by about 12% since the Model 3’s debut.

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