[lykr0n]

This. Ford makes 1.6 million cars (worldwide) per quarter. Tesla, while impressive, cannot keep up when someone else enters their market segment.

If tomorrow Ford/Chevy/Toyota announces a model 3 like car for 2020 release with something close to the 3's specs, Tesla is dead unless they can pull a rabbit out of their hat. Tesla can do what- 350k to 400k cars a year based on current numbers? The big players can do that in weeks.

I think there is some merit to the point about batteries- Tesla has a supply chain in place for that while everyone else is going to be fighting on the open market (as far as I know).

[dmode]

This is almost sounds eerily like "Blackberry will release a phone that will kill Apple". If it were that easy to just crank out an EV, all manufacturers had a 2 year window to release one and capture the Model 3 backlog. But nobody has released a compelling product. As it is not about just manufacturing a product. It is about manufacturing an EV that is competitive with Tesla's software prowess, monthly over the air updates, massive super charger network, battery capabilities, cooling tech, a no dealership model, and brand signalling. Beyond that, big cos just don't venture into a new market. A electric BMW 3 will actually cannibalize their own 3 series first. Can they actually sell a higher margin electric 3 series ? Otherwise investors will punish BMW. Will their dealership network accept selling a lower margin product ? A product that requires fewer service visit ? There are a TON of considerations on why Big Cos are caught flat footed by disrupters. Look at SAP and how it missed the Cloud movement as Salesforce ate their cake. Google and Yahoo, Walmart and Amazon, and many more

[kemiller]

The battery is not an afterthought. The big players do not have an answer to the gigafactory at this point. They can build all the cars they want but without batteries they won’t be electric.