Coast-to-coast on one tank or one bladder?
Business models are about tradeoffs. Remember the classic notion: Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two. When designing a product or business, you must understand how these tradeoffs matter to the customer.
Jerry Flint argues that “Mileage isn’t Everything“. He’s right — comfort, capacity, looks, price, safety — all of these matter to the customer. But what about the size of the human bladder?
Suppose you could create a car that can go from coast to coast on one tankful. Is that feasible? Jerry’s article explores this notion. But is it even desirable? Why? The human bladder. Even it it were possible to drive coast to coast on one tankful, people need a different kind of pit stop at least every few hours.
I wonder if the engineers are focused on the wrong dimension of performance: range instead of fuel economy. Range is important if you are flying to the Moon, since you have to get there and back on one tank. Not so much if you are going to stop anyway for other reasons.
