[woodandsteel]

>if Tesla fails, because Tesla will then serve as an example of why electric cars will never work, and from that point it will be 10x harder to create an EV startup

Except that during the last two years all the major car companies have started big EV programs, and in China, the world's largest car market, the government has gone all-in on pushing EV's. So no matter what happens with Tesla, EV's are here to stay. In fact the experts say that when batteries get cheap enough around 2025, the whole market is going to swing in their favor.