Original author: Sramana_Mitra

Original author: Sramana Mitra

Original author: jyotsna popuri

Original author: Sramana Mitra

Original author: Sramana Mitra

Original author: Sramana Mitra

Original author: Sramana Mitra

Ross Bailey, centre, the CEO and founder of Appear Here. Appear Here

Appear Here lets businesses rent pop-up space and has been called the "Airbnb of retail." The London startup raised $20 million last year and is currently planning international expansion. CEO Ross Bailey sat down with Business Insider to talk department stores, skipping university, and how to maintain company culture.

LONDON — Ross Bailey wants to talk about department stores.

"If analysts walked around some of them I think they would be trading at less than 30% their net asset value," Bailey says, referencing the already bombed out US "mall" sector.

He whips out his phone and starts scrolling through pictures that illustrate his point — dreadful carpets, too much stock cluttered together, and bad paintings hung up near concessions.

"If you saw that in someone's house you'd think they've got bad taste," he says in his typically enthusiastic style.

Why does he spend his time photographing poorly designed department stores? "It's my passion."

Appear Here, which Bailey founded in 2012, is a startup trying to do for retail space what Airbnb did for hotel rental. Bailey spends his days engrossed in retail — both good and bad.

His platform lets people and brands rent "pop up" space across cities, letting aspiring entrepreneurs trial ideas like takeaway porridge stalls or designers launch capsule collections.

Over 1,000 spaces are listed by Appear Here in the UK, with 1,000 in New York, where it launched last year, and even more in Paris. Everyone from Google to Moleskin has used the platform to book space and Made In Chelsea star Jamie Laing used Appear Here for the launch of his sweet brand Candy Kittens.

A pop-up in London's Old Street station publicising Netflix's Black Mirror and booked through Appear Here. Appear Here

Bailey had the idea for the business while running his own pop-up. He quit school at 16 to move from his home in Buckinghamshire to London and was involved in several entrepreneurial endeavours before running a temporary fashion stall in Soho to coincide with the 2012 London Olympics.

He noticed that people were coming up to him to ask about he'd managed to secure the space — Under Armour even approached him at one point.

"There's a pricing issue in real estate," Bailey, now 25, says. "It's based on 10-year leases. That model doesn't work anymore. Now we're seeing rent is a variable cost, not a fixed cost."

Retail occupancy rates are declining around the world as traditional players grapple with the rise of e-commerce. Shops are closing, sales are down, and fewer people are visiting.

Real estate needs to move more towards a more flexible pricing model, Bailey argues, like Uber's surge pricing or how hotel prices rise when a conference is in town.

"If you can make 70% of your revenue in December, you shouldn't be saying the same price for the space in January when there are no sales," Bailey argues.

"A few years ago people said it was a stupid idea, landlords will never do it. Now it's a case of OK, this is definitely going to happen."

Ten of the biggest landlords in the US have signed exclusive deals with Appear Here, including Blackstone and Simon, the biggest mall operator in the US. (Bailey didn't say whether he'd critiqued their carpets.)A New York pop-up organised by Warner Brothers using Appear Here's platform.Appear Here

Appear Here raised $12 million last year to go global and Bailey is currently scoping out a location for a new US office. Property VC Fifth Wall, which is backed by the likes of CBRE and Loewe's, has also invested an undisclosed sum and Bailey hints at another deal with a "fashion fund" that will be announced shortly.

It's all very impressive for someone still just in his mid-twenties. "Instead of uni, this has been my learning curve," Bailey says.

Six years on, what has he learned?

"I think I've definitely learned to delegate. You need to jump between high-level stuff and details."

Bailey logged 80 flights between London, Paris, and New York last year. He says he is always tired but it doesn't show — he is a whirlwind of ideas and opinions, talking a mile a minute. Towards the end of our conversation, though, a solitary yawn escapes.

"A big focus over the last six months was building out the exec team," Bailey says. Appear Here recently hired two execs from Uber to run the London and Paris offices. The company has also hired a new CTO and a new chief strategy officer.A pop-up for Kanye West's Life of Pablo album in London.Appear Here

The company has yet to file a set of full accounts, claiming small company exemption, but Appear Here says it has booking requests worth $110 million made every week across its platform — although not all are successfully fulfilled.

Appear Here charges a 15% booking fee, meaning that if even a small fraction of that $110 million figure is actually being booked, it is likely making tens of millions a year in revenue.

The future looks rosy for Appear Here but Bailey is keen to maintain the company culture as it grows. All employees use the same company issued notebooks and pens — a small touch, but one that's clearly important to Bailey — and all 70 staff still have lunch together on Fridays.

"You have to build a company that you're going to love and attract people with the same values," Bailey says.

Where did he learn that? During our interview, he mentions lunches with Net-A-Porter founder Massenet and hanging out with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky in San Francisco ("He loved our brand").

Bailey in Appear Here's offices. Appear Here

Net-A-Porter and Airbnb are two of the three companies Bailey most admires. The other is Nike. He has just finished reading Shoe Dog, the memoir of Nike founder Phil Knight, and implores me to read it.

"Nike defined an industry," Bailey says. Before Nike, "if you weren't running track, you didn't buy trainers. We want to be the Nike for entrepreneurs and creatives."

Around 40% of pop-ups on Appear Here are food and drinks stalls, while the rest are fashion, consumer goods, or other retailers like florists. Around 125,000 people have registered on the platform to rent space.

"I love the idea that we can help everyone bring their ideas to life," Bailey says.

Tokyo, Manchester, and even Toulouse come up when we talk about cities that could be interesting to Appear Here — but Bailey won't be drawn on specifics.

"We've got to be where the best ideas are," he says simply.

Original author: Oscar Williams-Grut

Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Sprint has partnered with the startup Tenor to create a series of gif ads tied to its Super Bowl commercial. The wireless company is hoping both Eagles and Patriot fans share images from its campaign to communicate with friends while watching the game Sunday night. Tenor is also planning to create gifs for all of the Super Bowl ads as well as key plays during the game.

Sprint wants to help you share your feelings during this year's Super Bowl.

The wireless company has partnered with the gif ad startup Tenor to roll out a series of gifs tied to its upcoming Super Bowl ad, which features a human-mocking fictional robot name Evelyn who likes to take selfies.

Tenor and Sprint have created unique gif ads tailored toward fans of both of this year's Super Bowl teams. The campaign started on Wednesday, as people started spotting Sprint gifs when searching for terms such as "selfie," "football," "Hungry" and "Smile" when they use Tenor's gif keyboard – which is integrated on Facebook, What's App, Twitter and iMessage.

 

Go Philadelphia

Go New England

That's phase one. The plan is to ramp up the gif ad effort during the game, as people are expected to share lots of gifs with friends while watching.

To be clear, these Sprint gifs aren't targeted to show up when people search for "Sprint" or "Super Bowl ads."  That's not really how gifs work, Tenor's head of US sales Mike Saperstein said. Unlike traditional information-driven web searches, people use gifs to express how they're feeling.

So Tenor and Sprint will show people gifs as they are looking to capture moments from the game or express specific emotions by searching for gifs that communicate phrases such as "touchdown," "lol," or "amazing."

"Now, when someone is talking to their buddy during the Super Bowl, a brand can be a part of that conversation," Saperstein told Business Insider. 

Tenor claims it has over 300 million monthly active users across the globe, and processes over 10 billion monthly searches. Plus, it has examined what kind of gif searches people conducted during last year's Super Bowl and during football games in general. 

So it's got pretty good viewpoint into gif usage and what's trending. 

And since kicking off its advertising business last year, Tenor has already run campaigns for advertisers such as Nissan, Wendy's, AT&T and  Dunkin Donuts. Advertisers only pay Tenor when people actually share their gifs.

The Sprint campaign marks perhaps the company's biggest opportunity to tie gif ads to a massive live event.

"This weekend is basically one of the most popular culture events of the year," he said. "It's the first time we’re really tying a brand to it this way, so it's significant."

Besides Sprint, Tenor is planning to create gifs tied to every single ad running during this year's game (it doesn't have paid deals with other Super Bowl advertisers), as well as gifs pulled from game action during the broadcast.

"This all ties back to emotion, and b rands really being part of those everyday conversations," Saperstein said. "And w e've never met an advertiser who wouldn’t love free promotion." 

Original author: Mike Shields

Your daily pill could one day be replaced by a once-a-week version. PavelKant/Shutterstock

Eventually, we might be able to consider daily pills a thing of the past. That's the vision of Lyndra, a company developing technology that transforms daily pills into weekly treatments. The hope is by taking a pill only once a week, you're less likely to forget a dose, something that's critical when treating conditions like HIV. 

One day, a daily prescription will feel as outdated as not having an answering machine.

That's the vision of Amy Schulman, CEO of the startup Lyndra. Lyndra's developing pills that can be taken on a weekly basis instead of once a day. 

"I imagine a world where my children's children will say to me, 'I don't understand — you took a pill every day?' And it will be as inconceivable to them that I took a pill every day as it is to my children that I had to argue with their grandparents over getting an answering machine," Schulman said. 

An estimated $100 billion of avoidable medical costs are attributed to people not taking their medications as prescribed. And for many daily treatments, skipping a pill can be a major issue that leads to the drug not being as effective in the long run or even developing resistance to the medications in the case of HIV. 

Lyndra CEO Amy Schulman Courtesy Lyndra

Lyndra was founded in 2015 after the Gates Foundation provided a grant to Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Bob Langer to develop a long-acting malaria prevention treatment. In 2017, the company raised $23 million in funding to get into human clinical trials.

While the pill technology could be used for any number of daily medications, to start Lyndra's focusing in on a few areas. Those include neurologic conditions like Alzheimer's disease in partnership with Allergan, behavioral conditions, and one day potentially developing longer-acting treatments for diabetes or cardiovascular disease. 

And in January, the company showed that in animals it could deliver commonly-used HIV medication on a weekly basis, rather than needing to take it every day.

The weeklong pill might look like any other vitamin or pill you take that comes in a capsule. What's different is what's inside.

Once the pill hits the stomach, the capsul dissolves and the pill opens up with six biodegradable arms that fold out in the shape of a starfish and emit the drug. 

"Like most great solutions, once you figure it out it's really simple," Schulman said. 

Lyndra isn't the only company trying to figure out how to make people more adherent to their medications. That includes coming out with injectable versions that only require you to take it once or twice a month, and implanted devices. But those pose their own challenges, since they can be more invasive or require more medical attention than a simple prescription. 

Especially when it comes to treating HIV, access to a clinic where you might be able to get an injection could be limited, Schulman said. 

"People would by and large prefer to take a pill," Schulman said. 

Original author: Lydia Ramsey

Have we hit peak smartphone?Ben Margot/AP

Smartphone sales declined slightly in 2017, reversing a trend of rapid growth over the past decade.Meanwhile, PC sales grew in the fourth quarter of 2017. It's a sign the PC's decline has finally bottomed out.2018 could be a challenging year for smartphone manufacturers as they run out of room to grow.

If you've been paying attention to the PC industry over the last decade or so, you're used to the same story: Traditional PC sales continue to decline as smartphone sales grow.

As personal computing finishes its transition to mobile devices, consumers are hanging onto their PCs longer and opting to upgrade their smartphones every couple of years instead. Smartphone sales growth has been off the charts since the modern smartphone era kicked off in 2007.

But 2017 was different. Strangely, those two trends reversed themselves.

According to research firm IDC, PC sales were actually up slightly (0.7%) in the fourth quarter of 2017. Smartphone sales were down for the quarter by 6.3%. And for the first time in recent memory, smartphone sales were down slightly (0.7%) for all the full year, according to IDC.

So what caused this phenomenon?

Apple may have played a part in the smartphone decline. The company reported its fourth-quarter earnings Thursday and said it sold 77 million iPhones during the holiday period, a 1.3% decline from the year before. Wall Street was expecting Apple to sell around 80 million iPhones, but it seems like the high-priced iPhone X spooked some would-be upgraders.

Samsung also had an off quarter: Shipments of its smartphones declined 4.4% year-over-years and Samsung lost its traditional spot as the world's No.1 smartphone vendor to Apple, according to IDC.

"Even though we have seen new full-screen displays, advanced biometrics, and improved artificial intelligence, the new and higher price points could be outweighing the benefits of having the latest and greatest device in hand," analyst Anthony Scarsella said in IDC's smartphone report Thursday.

Both Apple and Samsung released expensive new smartphones last fall with high-end specs and large, edge-to-edge screens. Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 sold for about $930. The iPhone X started at $999. Apple also raised the prices of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus by $50. Despite the positive reviews, it seems like the high price tags kept enough people from upgrading.

As for the surprise rebound in PC shipments, IDC pointed to a variety of factors including businesses upgrading PCs for their staff as well as strong demand in parts of Asia and South America.

The research firm also mentioned "pockets" of the consumer market buying PCs for "emerging use cases that require more compute power." While that sounds a little like bitcoin mining, those rigs are typically built on special racks loaded with GPUs rather than arrays of full-fledged PCs. 

According to data from Statista, annual PC shipments have declined every years since 2011. So it's also possible that the PC industry has finally bottomed out after years of decline, and that 1% or 2% fluctuations of sales in either direction are now the norm. 

Was it just a fluke?

It's hard to determine this early if 2017 was just a fluke, or if it was a sign of darker times for the smartphone market. The stakes are pretty high though. Apple still generates about two-thirds of its revenue from the iPhone, Google plans to continue ramping up its own hardware business, and Samsung will have to prove it can catch up to the iPhone X with its upcoming Galaxy S9.

Meanwhile, Chinese smartphone manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei are struggling to grow outside of Asia as US carriers refuse to sell those devices.

After ten years of booming smartphone sales that have put the gadgets in the hands of so many consumers throughout the world, it's very possible we're seeing the beginning of the end of the smartphone industry's insane growth.

Original author: Steve Kovach

Apple sold fewer iPhones in the holiday quarter than it did a year earlier, a fact that in the past would have spooked investors and worried the company's fans. But not this time around. That's because even though it sold fewer phones, it made a lot more money off them.

Boosted by sales of the company's new flagship, the iPhone X, which starts at $1,000, the average price consumers paid for Apple's smartphones jumped through the roof in the period. As seen in this chart from Statista, which is based on Apple's data, the average price consumers are paying for iPhones has been on a steady incline — as has Apple's smartphone revenue.

BI Graphics/Samantha Lee

Original author: Zoë Bernard

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Apple CEO Tim Cook AP

Apple said it will offer free repairs, and reimburse past repair bills, for iPhone 7s that suffer from an Airplane Mode glitch. The glitch was reported in September 2016 and caused phones that had been in Airplane Mode to have trouble re-connecting to cellular service. Apple said the problem was due to failed component on the device's main logic board.

iPhone users suffering from a curious "Airplane Mode" glitch that surfaced more than a year ago received a measure of vindication on Friday after Apple acknowledged the problem and to repair the problem for free. 

The issue dates back to September 2016, when some iPhone 7 owners reported that their phones were unable to reconnect to cellular service after coming out of Airplane Mode.  Apple recommended rebooting the phone or re-inserting the SIM card as a solution at the time, according to reports.

But the company now says the "No Service" problem actually calls for the phone to be repaired.

"Apple has determined that a small percentage of iPhone 7 devices may show 'No Service' in the status bar (even if cellular coverage is available), due to a component that has failed on the main logic board," writes Apple in a support entry.

The news comes shortly after Apple has been in the spotlight for another technical issue affecting iPhones, with the company acknowledging in December that its software has been purposefully throttling the performance of devices with older batteries.

In addition to offering free repairs for iPhone 7s with the Airplane Mode problem, Apple said on Friday that it will reimburse any iPhone 7 owner who already paid to have this problem fixed. 

If you believe your iPhone 7 is affected by the program, you can make an appointment at the Apple Store, find an authorized Apple repair center, or else talk to Apple customer support.

Original author: Matt Weinberger

This composite image made from a series of Jan. 23, 2018 photos shows a self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on Vera Rubin Ridge. The rover's arm which held the camera was positioned out of each of the dozens of shots which make up the mosaic. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS via AP

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover recently sent back a series of photos showing the view of planet's Gale Crater from Vera Rubin Ridge. The rover also sent back a selfie with Mount Sharp in the background. In the past five and a half years, the rover has gone about 1,100 feet up and covered approximately 11 miles from its landing site.

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover is still on the move.

The latest Rover selfie, seen above, is stitched together from a series of shots taken on the red planet's Vera Rubin Ridge inside Gale Crater. In the photo, the rover is on the base of Mount Sharp, which you can see peeking up behind the rover.

This is indeed a selfie — really, a series of them — but the arm holding the self-focusing camera was removed when the photos were all combined.

The Curiosity Rover has sent other fascinating images from the ridge, where it's been for the past few months. A new panorama shows the region, including the approximately 11-mile route the rover has covered in Gale Crater over the past five and a half years.

Climbing "Vera Rubin Ridge" provided NASA's Curiosity Mars rover this sweeping vista of the interior and rim of Gale Crater, including much of the rover's route during its first five-and-a-half years on Mars and features up to about 50 miles (85 kilometers) away. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

In the segment from the photo below, you can see the rover's exact route away from Bradbury Landing site.

At Yellowknife Bay in 2013, the mission found evidence of an ancient freshwater-lake environment that offered all of the basic chemical ingredients for microbial life. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The rover has climbed a little over 1,100 feet since it landed in 2012. Plans are for the rover to continue exploring the lower parts of Mount Sharp for the rest of its time on Mars. Next, it'll explore what appears to be a clay-rich slope, while continuing to send back data, photos, and the occasional selfie.

Check out a NASA video showing Curiosity's view from the ridge below.

Original author: Kevin Loria

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket booster floating in the ocean after launching GovSat-1. Elon Musk/SpaceX; Twitter

SpaceX launched a European communications satellite on Wednesday. The mission launched on a Falcon 9 rocket with a refurbished, older-style booster. The company expected its used booster to explode after an experimental landing in the ocean, but it was found floating intact. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the company planned to tow it to shore. The splashdown may mean SpaceX has found a way to significantly improve its reusable rockets.

SpaceX pulled off a routine launch of a European communications satellite, called GovSat-1, atop one of its Falcon 9 rockets on Wednesday.

But SpaceX achieved a feat with the mission that surprised even its founder Elon Musk: the recovery of a rocket booster that was doomed to explode.

The company typically tries to land the reusable boosters of its 230-foot-tall Falcon 9 rockets on a barge at sea or a pad on the coast. Each recovery can save millions of dollars because the booster makes up about 70% of the entire rocket's cost. The 134-foot-tall booster also does most of the work of accelerating a payload toward orbit.

For its GovSat-1 mission, though, SpaceX chose to ditch the booster in the Atlantic Ocean, even though it had plenty of fuel to land. According to NASASpaceFlight.com, that's because the booster was an older "model year," called block 3, which is not as advanced as SpaceX's current block 4 design. The booster will be even more behind the company's soon-to-launch block 5 design (its sturdiest and most powerful model yet).

SpaceX decided to experiment with the booster as it plummeted, however.

It should have plunged into the water, fallen over, and exploded. But to the surprise of Musk and others, the booster was found floating intact on its side. Musk tweeted a photo of the scene (above) after the launch.

"This rocket was meant to test very high retrothrust landing in water so it didn't hurt the droneship, but amazingly it has survived," Musk said. "We will try to tow it back to shore."

Business Insider contacted SpaceX for more details about its testing of the booster, but the company declined to provide new information.

There are a number of reasons why the feat could be significant, though.

The main parts of SpaceX's partly reusable Falcon 9 rocket system. SpaceX/Flickr; Business Insider

The booster of a Falcon 9 rocket soars dozens of miles high before it detaches from the upper-stage portion and falls back to Earth. At this point, several components work together to help it land.

The booster reignites with leftover fuel, helping it target a barge or landing pad below. Devices called grid fins then pop out to help it steer toward its destination. Finally, four legs extend to give the booster a platform to land on.

The experimental splashdown may have been a test for SpaceX's upcoming block 5 rocket design. A booster typically fires one of its nine engines during landing, using quite a bit of fuel in the process. Wednesday's test apparently fired three engines for a much shorter time — a trick that may consume less fuel.

A gentle splashdown in the ocean is a good sign. It might mean SpaceX is working on a new way to recover boosters, perhaps even if there is no boat to land them on or they miss their target.

Musk has said in recent months that he's hoping to slim down the recovery design on SpaceX's rocket boosters, and maybe forgo the landing legs entirely.

"We believe the precision at this point is good enough for propulsive landing that we do not need legs for the next version," Musk said in October.

"It will land with so much precision that it will land back on its launch mounts," he added — meaning right back at a launch pad or in a cradle with mounts designed to capture it.

A photo that shows the scale of a Falcon 9 rocket's self-landing booster. SpaceX/Elon Musk via Twitter; Business Insider

It's possible this test could be part of the company's attempt to ditch the landing legs, as some Reddit users have speculated in a discussion about the GovSat-1 mission.

Eliminating even some of the legs' weight would create new possibilities for Falcon 9 rockets.

All four legs together "weigh less than a [Tesla] Model S," Musk has said, though presumably the weights are similar: about two tons. The booster could instead pack in that much more fuel, which would improve its odds of successfully rocketing payloads to orbit or launching heavier payloads — while giving the booster more control for landing.

The change could also free up enough weight for a system to recover the expensive second stage of the rocket, which currently gets discarded. Musk has previously said he'd like to recover that as well.

Wednesday's experiment might aid the development of Musk's "Big F***ing Rocket," a fully reusable 348-foot-tall launcher being designed to help send people to Mars (which Musk wants to land back at its launch pad for rapid refueling).

In any case, SpaceX seemed to be trying to improve its booster-landing technique with the latest test. The company wound up with an unexpected 134-foot-tall, multi-million-dollar memento to commemorate the experiment.

Original author: Dave Mosher

Reuters

Stocks got slammed, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing down more than 600 points.Tech stocks reported mostly disappointing earnings.Job numbers were good, but maybe too good for some economists.Oil prices slid.Watch the price of the Dow move in real time here.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 666 points in its biggest point decline since October 2008, when the Troubled Asset Relief Program didn't pass, according to Bespoke Investment Group. Its 2.56% decline was the biggest percentage slide since Brexit.

The big drop came after some of the largest companies in the world reported disappointing earnings for the holiday quarter. Of the mega-cap tech stocks that reported this week, only Amazon had a solid quarter, as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all had blemishes in their reports.

The Labor Department reported strong numbers on Friday, as the US economy added 200,000 jobs when economists were predicting 180,000. Average hourly earnings rose 2.9% year-over-year, the largest since the recession. That led some economists to wonder if the labor market is overheating.

The strong wages and job growth numbers ran the 10-year yield up to 2.85%, its highest in four years. It also caused Wall Street economists to strengthen their predictions of three rate hikes from the Federal Reserve this year. The hikes would be one way for the Fed to try and pour cold water on a red-hot market.

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was in decline on Friday as well, pulling back toward the $65 mark it crossed in January. The 0.5% decline in the price of oil followed a rare earnings miss from Exxon, which fell 6.66%. The oil company missed on earnings and revenue expectations, which has happened only three other times in the last four years.

Markets Insider

Original author: Seth Archer

Original author: Dominic Umbro

Original author: Tanya Dua

Tesla has posted some crazy fast 0-60 numbers for its Model S, raising comparisons with supercars.But there's more to supercars that straight-line speed.Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne helpfully pointed this out.

The Tesla Model S P100D, with "Ludicrous Mode" acceleration, can go from 0-60 mph in a mind-boggling 2.3 seconds. This has led to declarations that this all-electric four-door, a family sedan for the future, is secretly a supercar.

That 0-60 speed might be faster than what some of the world's proper supercars can achieve, but the CEO of one of those supercar brands isn't having any of it.

After Ferrari reported solid full-year 2017 earnings Thursday, Sergio Marchionne spoke with analysts on a conference call and took questions about a rumored all-electric supercar. At the Detroit auto show in January, Marchionne said, "If there is an electric supercar to be built, then Ferrari will be the first," and his impromptu remarks at the unveiling of the Jeep Cherokee implied that the prancing horse was aiming to take on Tesla.

On Thursday, it became clear that Marchionne doesn't think Tesla has created a real supercar (even though Tesla did unveil a new Roadster last November that, when built, will be the fastest thing on the road, with a predicted 0-60 time of 1.9 seconds and styling that's anything but stodgy). 

He reiterated his "Ferrari will be first" comment, in the process taking a shot at the handling characteristic of electric vehicles. They aren't great. The P100D is stunning in a straight line, but that makes it more of an electric muscle car than a flashy European go-around-corners demon, like, say, a Ferrari 488 GTB.

A real supercar.Hollis Johnson

He also took a shot at Tesla, citing an earlier 0-60 time.

"I have read some interesting analyst reports that suggest that that now that Tesla has done a car that does 0-60 mph in 2.7 seconds and there is no room for supercars," he said.

"Well, I would challenge anybody who's driven an electric car to try and drive at the same way we drive a Ferrari and you’d recognize immediately that the handling characteristics of the car are totally different. So whenever Ferrari will express itself in a fully electric vehicle, it will do so by making sure that both sound and handling are reflective of Ferrari's heritage."

The Tesla Model S.Tesla

Marchionne has a point. I've driven the Model S in Ludicrous Mode, and while it is certainly fast, I've also driven the Ferrari 488, and there's no reasonable comparison. You can take a stock 488, rig it up for racing, and run it in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. You can take a Model S to the drag strip. Apple, meet orange.

Zero-to-60 performance makes headlines because it's a neat way to deliver the "fast" message, but those in the know about performance cars understand that acceleration is but one piece of the puzzle. A useful piece, but simply a piece nonetheless. For example, the huge electric batteries that EVs have to lug around present a bigger challenge for handling than the internal-combustion components of a Ferrari, which can be moved around the vehicle's frame to optimize balance.

Ultimately, Tesla and other EV brands might produce "their" Ferraris. But for now, Ferrari thinks they have some work to do — and is convinced that its electric supercars, should they ever exist, will still be not just Ferrari-good, but Ferrari-better.

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.

Original author: Matthew DeBord