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by username332211 982 days ago
I don't know if you realize it, but you are making the assumption every EV manufacturer has the capacity to produce vastly more EVs than they currently do. What makes you believe in that assumption?
1 comments

If you believe that firms don’t respond to incentives, then sure. If you believe that people do not innovate to optimize their utility, then sure. If you think America can’t build things, then sure; it’s an invalid assumption.
I don't know if you understand this, but factories have a maximum capacity they can produce. You can't just snap your fingers and double the capacity of a factory overnight if you realize that it is too small.

Look at how long it took Tesla to build the Shanghai gigafactory: About two years--and literally everyone who knew anything about auto manufacturing said it would be literally impossible to make that timeline when Tesla announced it in the beginning. People made jokes about it. Oh look at that! Elon Musk is lying again! Hurhurhur.

I mean, why do you think the Model S had zero competition for over 7 years? The first 2 years I understand--everyone thought EVs were a dead market. But why did Mercedes, BMW, Audi, et. al. wait the other 5 years (while Tesla was absolutely destroying their market share in the US) to bring out a competitive product?

Was it because they're a bunch of dumb-dumbs?

Or was it maybe because it takes many years to design a complex product like an EV and build a factory to build the car?