There is plenty of demand for the new Tesla 3; the question is whether Elon Musk can produce them all. BMW and Daimler have the converse problem: they are good at making diesel cars but who wants one?
After decades of success, dominating the global luxury market with impeccably designed engineering marvels, Germany’s carmakers face their iPhone moment. Like BlackBerry and Nokia before, they are confronted with a US company selling an elegant device based on superior technology.
BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen executives will gather in Berlin on Wednesday with ministers at a “diesel summit” to discuss how to mitigate the technology disaster that the industry has brought on itself. They might as well not bother: diesel is dying and the only question is how long it will take.