Mainstream car manufacturers are spending billions on developing EVs. Before spending any more money they should take a leaf out of Tesla’s books and create a recharging network to support their cars, according to research by Professor Hemant Bhargava. Only then will they be able to treat their EVS as a product. For now at least, EVs are also a platform. Bhargava and his co-authors emphasize that platform characteristics and network effects are at the core of the electric vehicle industry. A battery electric vehicle is not just a vehicle whose fuel happens to be supplied by the battery. Rather, the vehicle purchase decision is heavily influenced by the availability of a widespread supercharging network as a complementary good. Read more at: https://gsm.ucdavis.edu/news/teslas-advantage-evs-cannot-succeed-without-developing-parallel-supercharging-networks