[labcomputer]

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?