[gliboc]

They took advantage of the lithium-ion battery newly improved performances in their first Roadster as early as 2008. Before that, they spent their first years researching how to arrange clusters of batteries in a viable way, which is probably what lead to their remaining advantage in autonomy. At SpaceX, key inventions include soldering sheets of metal together instead of using rivets, and other stuff that made their building process much cheaper than competitors. This is surely what parent meant.

They used to buy lithium-ion cells directly from Panasonic, and now they operate together at the Gigafactory.

Overall I don't think these could qualify as fundamental breakthroughs, but it is surely an important work, and what are fundamental breakthroughs anyway? I'd venture so far as to say that here the breakthrough is in the result: electric cars are coming, whether it's theirs or their competitors.

[jeffreyrogers]

Yeah, I agree with that, and I doubt we'd even be talking about electric cars today if Tesla hadn't been created. But I don't see any Tesla technology that can't easily be replicated by any other car manufacturer. Plus the other car manufacturer's don't need to learn to run an assembly line.

[mmt]

> I don't see any Tesla technology that can't easily be replicated by any other car manufacturer

I'd agree with you if it weren't for the word "easily". I think even the original commenter would agree that such replication would then constitute the new Nash equilibrium.

> Plus the other car manufacturer's don't need to learn to run an assembly line.

I would argue that assembly lines are a very old technology that Tesla is merely replicating. It's just not easily replicated, at scale, especially with any novelty thrown in.