[salmo]

Tesla is only targeting the “luxury car” market. They don’t stray from Lexus’s or BMW’s footprint and haven’t touched the others lucrative SUV business. That’s a very small niche in the grand scheme of vehicles.

And they’re dodging the largest vehicle market entirely: fleet vehicles. At least a few years ago F-150s outsold all cars. Sprinter vans can’t be produced fast enough to meet demands. These dwarf family vehicles.

Their accomplishment was seeing a market problem and then killing it. Manufacturers were only targeting “city” vehicles or crunchy granola people with hybrids and EVs. Tesla made EVs freaking cool.

Seeing that as evidence that they’re the primary source for all EV innovation, though, doesn’t line up. They have a market targeted and are focused on delivering there. There is work going on with EV fleet vehicles, semis, etc. and they’re not involved.

It’s been about 10 years now, and they’re only making what an “old car company” would consider 1 platform with no sign of expanding. I think they’ll continue to dominate that space, but there’s a lot of innovation required to get outside of that footprint.