BMW Joins Cadillac Wooing Silicon Valley to Combat Tesla
BMW scored a coup this month when former Apple Inc. executive Tony Fadell became one of the first U.S. owners of the new $136,000 i8 plug-in sports car.
Fadell, who worked with Steve Jobs to develop the iPod and later co-founded smart-thermostat maker Nest Labs Inc., lends some much needed cachet to Bayerische Motoren Werke AG in Silicon Valley, where Tesla Motors Inc.’s Model S is the preferred luxury vehicle for many tech elites.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak often tweets about his visits to Tesla charging stations while Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin grabbed headlines when his staff turned his Model S pink for an April’s Fools prank last year. The Model S was the best-selling vehicle in 2013 in the wealthy Bay Area towns of Atherton and Los Altos Hills, according to Edmunds.com, which tracks auto sales.
Car companies covet Californians, who are seen as trendsetters for the rest of the country. All the better if the auto industry can win adherents at companies striving to stay at the cutting edge of technology.
“It becomes almost your second business card to drive a Model S because it demonstrates you’re at the leading edge of technology sophistication,” said Thilo Koslowski, an auto-industry analyst for Gartner Inc. “Silicon Valley is just the forerunner for a lot of this stuff because eventually it will penetrate everywhere.”
Not to get left behind by Tesla, brands such as BMW and Cadillac are putting electric-drive models into car-sharing programs and showing them off on tech campuses. They’re also sprucing up dealerships to match modernized lineups.
‘Next Generation’
While Tesla sales in its home Bay Area -- the Palo Alto-based automaker has its only assembly plant in nearby Fremont -- have slowed this year as inventory has been directed to Asia and Europe, it was the fastest-growing auto brand in California last year when it overtook Cadillac in San Francisco, according to Edmunds.com, which tracks auto sales around the country.
“New York and LA are the biggest luxury markets, but they are relatively conservative luxury markets. But San Francisco may be the next generation of luxury buyers,” Uwe Ellinghaus, head of Cadillac marketing for Detroit-based General Motors Co., said in an interview this month. “They are far more interested in progressive brand statements then necessarily the quickest car on earth.”
Continued at Link
BMW scored a coup this month when former Apple Inc. executive Tony Fadell became one of the first U.S. owners of the new $136,000 i8 plug-in sports car.
Fadell, who worked with Steve Jobs to develop the iPod and later co-founded smart-thermostat maker Nest Labs Inc., lends some much needed cachet to Bayerische Motoren Werke AG in Silicon Valley, where Tesla Motors Inc.’s Model S is the preferred luxury vehicle for many tech elites.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak often tweets about his visits to Tesla charging stations while Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin grabbed headlines when his staff turned his Model S pink for an April’s Fools prank last year. The Model S was the best-selling vehicle in 2013 in the wealthy Bay Area towns of Atherton and Los Altos Hills, according to Edmunds.com, which tracks auto sales.
Car companies covet Californians, who are seen as trendsetters for the rest of the country. All the better if the auto industry can win adherents at companies striving to stay at the cutting edge of technology.
“It becomes almost your second business card to drive a Model S because it demonstrates you’re at the leading edge of technology sophistication,” said Thilo Koslowski, an auto-industry analyst for Gartner Inc. “Silicon Valley is just the forerunner for a lot of this stuff because eventually it will penetrate everywhere.”
Not to get left behind by Tesla, brands such as BMW and Cadillac are putting electric-drive models into car-sharing programs and showing them off on tech campuses. They’re also sprucing up dealerships to match modernized lineups.
‘Next Generation’
While Tesla sales in its home Bay Area -- the Palo Alto-based automaker has its only assembly plant in nearby Fremont -- have slowed this year as inventory has been directed to Asia and Europe, it was the fastest-growing auto brand in California last year when it overtook Cadillac in San Francisco, according to Edmunds.com, which tracks auto sales around the country.
“New York and LA are the biggest luxury markets, but they are relatively conservative luxury markets. But San Francisco may be the next generation of luxury buyers,” Uwe Ellinghaus, head of Cadillac marketing for Detroit-based General Motors Co., said in an interview this month. “They are far more interested in progressive brand statements then necessarily the quickest car on earth.”
Continued at Link