Hacker News Reader

Comment by jordache | Hacker News Reader

Shocked!

This is akin to if a bicycle company tried to build cars, thinking their engineers can simply shift from bicycles to cars...

View on HN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot

I'm not sure if that refutes or supports the above point... :D

And there are/were several other car brands that made bicycles before they made cars (e.g. Triumph, Rover, Minerva, Opel, ...).

Not to mention BSA, who made rifles before they made motorbikes.

The Wright Brothers had a bicycle company and then invented the airplane[1]. They didn't just make airplanes, they invented them.

I have no stake in the Dyson car, but there are other reasons that it didn't work out.

[1]: https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/wright-brothers/onlin...

On of my favorite aspects of this story is that in order to invent the propeller (one of Wright's true innovations) they had to invent and build the Lift Balance. They built the Lift Balance[1]... out of bicycle spokes and hack saw blades[2]!

[1]: https://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/balance.html [2]: http://aerologic.com/aiaa/AIAA-02-11-2006.pdf

Though the Wright Bros weren't competing with existing entrenched aircraft manufacturers in the way Dyson would be competing with Tesla et al.

I get that there are examples of companies that moved from bicycles to cars (or planes), but I doubt there are recent examples. It is much harder to enter the mature automotive market, which is what makes Tesla's accomplishments extraordinary.

AFAIK all mass-market automakers in the US and Europe trace their history to automotive startups in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and Japan and Korea's automakers all formed in the mid 20th century.

I guess China probably has the newest automaker startups outside of Tesla, but they don't have much volume outside of their domestic markets.

Except Dyson's expertise is electric motors and aerodynamics. This is arguably somewhat transferable to electric cars.

I can believe that they designed a nice product, but it seems to me that car manufacture is very economically hostile to new entrants. The only place where new entrants typically succeed is super-cars, where money is no object.

Taking Tesla as example, they had a successful strategy of starting with the high-end Roadster, then developing their business until they could make the Model S then Model 3 economically viable.

I know, Wright?

(Sorry, not comparable but I had to make the pun.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Darracq

went from cycling to electric cars

By some accounts, Honda Motor Company:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda

I was about to mention that in 2007, many of the top professional downhill mounter bikers were riding Honda bikes at the world cup. I don't even think that the bikes weren't actually for sale to the public.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com