GigaOM Pro

GigaOM’s Katie Fehrenbacher, who has ridden in the Tesla Model S and been covering the company for many years, offers in depth analysis of the launch of the new luxury EV. GigaOM surveyed over 300 readers to get a flash analysis of how the Model S will be received. It skews toward Tesla supporters, evidenced by the fact that over 80 percent of respondents said they’d buy the Model S over a Mercedes, a BMW, or a Lexus. Most interesting from the data was that lower fuel costs were the third most important factor in the purchasing decision for respondents. The most important reason to own a Model S? Wanting to have a “super-cool car.” Tony Fadell has now done it with the sleek smart thermostat Nest and now Tesla is doing it in the luxury sedan market. It’s about great design at a high but not outrageous price. On the latter question of price, if Tesla could shave even 5K off its base model price, it would become even more dangerous to its competitors. But with 10,000 reservations for the vehicle and needing only 8,000 sales to break even in 2013, it may not need to cut prices.