Is Tesla this far ahead because they're the only mfr heating the battery? Or do all mfrs heat the battery, but Tesla has gone above and beyond with the octovalve?
Active battery management is common to all EVs now - only the first gen Leaf and other weird niche vehicles like that don't have it. What Tesla does is an incredibly refined, efficient and integrated hardware coupled with great software. If you watch Munro's teardown of the new Model S, they basically state that they don't think it can really be improved.
It's basically head and shoulders above the competitions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kHsd3Ocxc