That’s what Car Charts’ author Glenn Mercer delves into with this well-reasoned essay that looks at why the auto industry is so obsessed with product diversity, and what Tesla’s success with radical simplicity could mean for the future of trims and variants.
Silicon Valley denizens have always asserted the former: a car is a phone on wheels, you just have to get the styling right once, and then crank out millions of physically-nearly-identical units, only upgrading the electronics and software along the way.
But if a car is more like a house, complexity re-enters the picture. House buyers like to specify square footage, number of rooms, flooring, countertops, appliances, window treatments… and we haven’t even gotten to the furniture yet.
A car is somewhere in between. History says customers like choice, Tesla says they don’t, really … and they haven’t been wrong, so far.
[glennmercer.substack.com]
