[dogma1138]

I disagree there are two primary leads in the automotive industry manufacturing and supply chain.

These are both hard to build, and require not only a monumental capital investment but also a lot of organizational experience to get right especially around QA and also can easily be a handicap for example established automakers often base their design choices on their existing supply chain and part availability as they often want to maximize part commonality between various models.

That said I do agree that as far as design goes it’s far easier for an established automaker to catch up to a contender than the other way around.

At least if they are willing to give up on some of the optimizations they squeezed out of the process over decades.

[basch]

We agree. I should have been more precise in my words. I meant there is no huge lead in the product itself.