Paying extra

For six years, if you wanted an electric car, you’d need to pay extra. It cost more than the regular kind.

Of course, if you decided to buy one, you weren’t paying extra. You were buying sustainability, community awareness, cachet, status, safety, quiet and the feeling of being an early adopter.

People never pay extra.

They buy something they want at a price that feels fair to them.

In the next few years, electric cars are actually going to be cheaper than their more-polluting brethren. And that means that anyone who wants to charge a premium is going to have to offer quality, service, design and a feeling that it’s worth whatever is being charged.

It’s very difficult to make a living selling something that doesn’t, by some apparent measure, cost extra.

The hard work is in keeping the promise that your extra isn’t extra at all.