Is There a New Thing in Cars?

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There was an era in the sixties when nobody worked on safety. Now there's dozens of companies that contribute to that supply chain, and it's just part of every car. You can't even differentiate on unsafety any more, because they're able to build that up. And that's a car version of multi touch. Yes.

In this re-run from September 2018, Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky talk all about Tesla — and more broadly, the nature of disruption overall. How disruptive is Tesla really, and what exactly are they disrupting — from the dashboard to car makers to vendors to energy source to autonomy overall?

The tech industry is littered with leading innovators... who nonetheless failed to be the dominant leader in the end. So the question should be, is this new thing fundamentally difficult for the incumbent to do, and how does it relate to market dominance? Which of these things are important in order for Tesla to be the new BMW or the new GM? Looking back at other examples historically (Microsoft, GM's Saturn Brand, and of course the iPhone), what kind of disruption matters most for market dominance? And what is the long view of how software is eating transportation?