"For some reason it strikes me as genuine, like he's someone I can relate with and look up to."
That's typical of salespeople at the higher levels. The smooth-talking types are down at the midmarket dealerships.
For the other extreme, see Shai Agassi, who ran an electric car company, Better Place. This is his 2009 TED talk.[1] I heard him speak once. He's really good looking, he sounds very convincing, and his business plan was total bullshit.
("E-miles follow Moore's Law.") But he convinced people to invest $900 million, met with many national leaders, and got massive press coverage. Better Place delivered a only a few hundred cars, built by Renault, before it went bust.
Does he appear a snake oil salesman in light of the facts you know now? Or you're saying you would have thought the same thing back in 2009? Do you have any specifics on why you feel that way?
Genuinely curious, as a person who likes to analyze public speaking events.
When I heard him speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, I though "I'm listening to a con man". He was talking about expanding his company 10x every year for years to come. Few companies have done that successfully, especially in a bricks-and-mortar business, which building battery-swap stations is. And the whole battery leasing model sounded like a financial gimmick. I used to go to VC events where people pitched, so I've heard lots of pitches.
I also thought, he's betting against battery technology. If somebody comes up with a battery that gives enough range and a fast charging system (which is what happened; visit your Tesla dealer) his whole battery-swap scheme is obsolete.
I also thought, if this is so great, and you're operating in countries from Israel to Denmark, why aren't there more of your cars on the road yet?
I agree, if someone was claiming they could grow a business 10x/year, that sounds suspicious. However, I didn't hear him speak at the Commonwealth Club, so I can only go off his TED talk. He says the EV industry will grow 100x between 2011 and 2016.
In that talk, he sounds more reasonable to me. There's a lot of overlap between his ideas and Elon's and he's very upfront about what he is and is not trying to do. He states that he's not trying to change the battery industry (like Elon with the Gigafactory); he's treating the industry as an input. His whole e-Miles concept seems like a different take on making the TCO, of an electric car, more appealing to the mass-market. I'm not saying I agree, I haven't run the numbers, but it doesn't sound unreasonable. In fact, Elon hedged himself by touting a battery swapping station.
My feeling is based off his TED talk alone, and I'm just not understanding where the snake-oil salesman vibe is coming from. It's very pleasurable to watch him present. Of course, if I had seen what you did at the Commonwealth, then my impression would be different.
That's typical of salespeople at the higher levels. The smooth-talking types are down at the midmarket dealerships.
For the other extreme, see Shai Agassi, who ran an electric car company, Better Place. This is his 2009 TED talk.[1] I heard him speak once. He's really good looking, he sounds very convincing, and his business plan was total bullshit. ("E-miles follow Moore's Law.") But he convinced people to invest $900 million, met with many national leaders, and got massive press coverage. Better Place delivered a only a few hundred cars, built by Renault, before it went bust.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcoJt2KLC9k