>> Not China.
I think it was always unimaginable that once China got Tesla's tech (at least, some of it), a lot of those initial sales percentages would transition to China's own companies. China's markets have always been controlled by China, and they are experts at making sure they benefit internally from all new tech.
When the iPhone 6 came out in China, it took ~28% of the Chinese market. Today, Iphones are maybe half that and will never do better.
This is the process: US innovates, moves to China for cheap labor, the product is stolen, and soon China makes them in-house and that's that. They're in control of the process.
So, nothing new here.
China is more capable of competing today, to its credit.
This is, in my view, why Trump is 100% correct that we need to build these products at home so we can compete from the outset without so much theft of IP.
At the same time, Musk's idea about patents are not all wrong; however, there are areas where you don't innovate every three years. In those areas Tesla needs to protect the IP by the strongest means possible. IMO. It is a defensive weapon. |
