Apple made products that were actually practical and useful to ordinary people. Tesla is a rich person's toy only made affordable by heavy tax credits.
Edit: I would think they are more like NeXT right now. They are making something really cool, but very expensive and not practical for most people.
Apple's were if not "a rich persons toy" then at least "solidly upper middle class persons toy" for a very long time. For most of their early existence, you could get competing products at half their price, that was still out of the acceptable cost range for most people, and soon enough you could get products at less than 20% of the cost of their main products.
Arguably a lot of their range still is still unaffordable for most people.
> Tesla is a rich person's toy only made affordable by heavy tax credits.
Apple is also a rich person's toy only made affordable by heavy carrier subsidy. Carrier subsidy is the primary reason why iphone sales are so high. Nobody would otherwise pay 600-700 USD. As opposed to android devices which are like 400 USD for no subsidy (nexus 4).
(And of course the whole point of Tesla Motors is to make an affordable EV, but let's not give credit too early. To loosely quote Elon Musk's response to criticism like this, "many people are under the mistaken impression that we made the Roadster because we thought there was a dire shortage of sports-cars for rich people.")
The important thing is that they are making money doing it, so that ordinary people can benefit down the road. Apple were seen as overpriced for the longest time and it's only recently they went from niche brand to mainstream.
No more or less affordable than a 7 series BMW. A $7500 Federal tax credit probably isn't what makes or breaks a decision to buy a $70K car. Hell, I still would have purchased our Leaf even if it didn't get the tax credit, and it was only $32K (and therefore the credit being a much larger percentage of price).
there is too much risk to just jumping into the mass-market price range, so Tesla is using these high-end vehicles as an infrastructure/know-how/money launchpad for broader mass-market cars. in other words, from a strategic point of view the Model S is a way to get investment dollars toward the pursuit of an affordable electric car.
this isn't my analysis. Elon has mentioned it in various places:
Do you think it's a better business strategy to start out competing with the Yarus? I think it makes sense to build a strong brand associated with luxury and desirability first, and then sneak in some budget-level products as BMW et al have done, rather than dive right into a race to the bottom with sub-30K commuter vehicles.
A pure electric vehicle to get myself to and from work is perfectly practical, and would save me lots of gas money. A bonus is that it's sexy looking, America made, hacker-friendly and a blast to drive. As soon as I can afford it, I'll buy one.
The Apple II says hello, too. When introduced, its retail price was around twice competing machines, and the others kept cutting price while Apple didn't. Soon enough entry level home computers sold for sub $200, while Apple kept introducing most of their new models in the $1200-$1300 price range or above.
A lot of people can't afford Apple, but look at the sense of design and pace of innovation it brought to the table. The repercussions of Telsa are going to be tremendous on the vehicle industry.
Edit: I would think they are more like NeXT right now. They are making something really cool, but very expensive and not practical for most people.