<story><title>Tesla’s bioweapon mode is a stroke of genius for developing markets</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/02/tesla-bioweapon-mode-for-whiffy-cities/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dang</author><text>The original announcement is discussed at &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=11617945&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=11617945&lt;/a&gt;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tesla’s bioweapon mode is a stroke of genius for developing markets</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/02/tesla-bioweapon-mode-for-whiffy-cities/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>xoa</author><text>I wonder if Tesla is considering a potential regulatory advantage as well, which though by nature more iffy (since it&amp;#x27;s down to the whims of leadership) could still be a very potent marketing point. One technique for pollution reduction that China at least as implemented is to simply brute force reduce the number of allowed cars on the road (though even for them it&amp;#x27;s hard to enforce), for example by having odd&amp;#x2F;even license plate days. However, an electric car obviously contributes nothing, and it seems like a number of genuine interests would exist to exempt them from any road restrictions. To a lot of people a guaranteed license to legitimately drive when a traditional vehicle would be banned could be worth a major premium. It could make a lot of sense for Tesla to go very, very hard on a full package environmental protection (both internal and external) offering, because a lot of favorables line up for them. The most polluted places simultaneously make their advantages far more important and also contain higher percentages of people with the money to pay for a Tesla, even in countries that are lower on the average nationwide GDP&amp;#x2F;capita or HDI scales.</text></comment>