I actually think we're getting close. I see some cars out there with really good range, but clearly not "fun" levels of power or AWD. I see cars out there with a lot of fun and AWD but the range is more like 200-230 EPA. I see cars out there that are nice luxury and have good range/power, but they're like $80k to $100k compared to $70s for Model Y and even less for Model 3 (I know it's not luxury, but it's not cloth seats and the big screen and software goes a long way to make it feel "high tech/class").
So we're getting close... once they can refine those a little more (maybe 2 to 4 years, second gen versions, etc) I think there will be something close to equal to Tesla on the market...
Big problem will still be charging. Most these other guys that are building good cars that are very close still have charging issues. 125 to 150kW isn't going to cut it in three or four years (it hardly does now). Why spend $40k to $60k on a car that already is on the slow end of the curve. Even some that get "good marks" for charging are usually around 170kW to 190kW. Very few reliably bump into that 200 to 250kW range like Tesla does all day long. Tesla also has a pretty good curve compared to some that might drop 50kW or more as it drops down to a slower speed on it's curve. And of course the stations; Tesla still by far is the leader. I very rarely see broken stalls and when I do it's ~10% or less of the stations at that location. EA and others still have pretty bad issues with uptime and just in my few visits to those stations I've run across 25% to 50% of stalls not working (not hard when the location is only 2 or 4 stations)! I'm still seeing fairly newly built locations that are 4 stations and at least in the Seattle market I was surprised how often they were full or at least 50% full (and often that meant full because of one or two offline stations). The biggest win to these 3rd party guys would (will?) be Tesla opening up to 3rd party cars, unless it's something crazy like $0.75/kWh or whatever.
I seriously considered a Rivian when I was trading in my LR Y with FSD. The extra cost of the Rivian was minimal, the range was really close to Y when unladen, the performance is pretty impressive and the tech is close (a little slow compared to Tesla, but usable). However, after trying to opportunity charge my Model Y a couple times before trade in at CCS stations and seeing them full and not working and a car or two waiting at a small 4 station location, I just decided against it. I don't want to deal with issues like that on a road trip. Superchargers have been great to me and they just keep getting better. EA might get there, but honestly I'm still seeing a lot of misses with them and EVGo isn't much better. I see a huge opportunity for potential with both of them, but without a car in the game I feel like they're just looking at the guy next to them (not Tesla) and as long as they're doing better or expanding more they consider themselves good. Well when the bar is on the ground, putting it on the first step is a huge win....
