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steven lightfoot's avatar

Good. I appreciate your articles, even if I don't always agree. This article makes many good points. Talking about personal vehicles, the problem that the auto/EV industry today has, is their product is NOT actually functionally equivalent to ICE vehicles, and for most of the harried middle class, EVs have LOWER utility than ICE cars. Whish is why the middle class is not yet buying them en masse.

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Damian Penny's avatar

Tata Motors hoped the tiny Nano would be for India what the Model T was for the USA. They succeeded in designing and building the most inexpensive new car in the world.

...which is exactly why it flopped.

The company overlooked an important factor: newly middle-class Indians saw new cars as status symbols and didn't want the stigma of owning a "cheap" vehicle. They were willing to save up or pay a bit more to get a larger (and presumably safer) car instead.

There's a lesson there about being one of the first countries to have an emerging middle class, and one which is only building up one now.

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