Or people who actually... you know... need to drive a car, rather than a reservation.
OK, though I suspect that many Model 3 reservation holders who aren't in one of those categories is probably driving an ICE until the Model 3 is here.
In actual fact we have many major investments now happening in software, battery/storage, powertrain and chassis design. Nearly every major OEM other than Fiat/Chrysler has major investments underway to support BEV and/or PHEV. We might denigrate less conventional innivations such as Fuel Cell and PSA's compressed energy storage but all the startups, potential deadends and marginal advances are contributing to the state of the art, as well as progress to potential breakthroughs. Every global energy storage manufacturers is now building new li-ion capacity with an amazing variety of chemistries, form factors, and materials. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of all the pure science in both chemistry and materials.
There is a lot of EV development work going on out there. I think the major car companies are doing it because of a combination of CARB and insurance in case the Model 3 is the hit it looks like it will be. Doing a bit of R&D is a rather small investment though compared to the effort it will take to produce enough batteries. Companies like LG Chem have a bit of idle capacity, but it's estimated that LG Chem could only ramp up to build about another 20-25K more Bolts a year if demand warranted it based on their current idle capacity.
The numbers the majors are planning on building for the foreseeable future are still lower than Tesla is producing today. VW is the only major car maker that has announced plans to build 1 million or more EVs at any point in the future and they don't plan to get there until 2025. They also haven't made any announcements about what sort of range these EVs will have.
There is a lot of hype about the Bolt, but even if they wanted to GM won't be able to build more than 50K of them a year for at least 3-4 years. They could ramp up to build 1 million chassis a year, but there won't be enough batteries.
And there is a lot of research going on into better battery chemistries, but as Elon warned in the shareholder's meeting, 99% of the hype about batteries is false. Even if the killer chemistry combo is discovered tomorrow, it will take years to get it into mass production, anywhere from 5-10 years depending on how different the production process is.
Only one company today has in motion the plan to build over 1 million long range BEVs a year. VW is on the first step of that journey, but so far their own Gigafactory is vaporware. Tesla is the only one with an actual Gigafactory, even if it is only a slice of the final building. Elon said Panasonic's battery making hardware is in the plant now. If it hasn't already started, they are very close to starting production of batteries in Nevada.
Having all the tech in the world is great, but the winner is going to be who can produce the most number of batteries in the least amount of time. Today Tesla is about 3-4 years ahead of everyone.
Just now we are in a similar position with vehicles as we were 110 years ago when steam, electric, alcohol, gasoline and kerosene all were competing. Fits and starts are happening.
Though i think the head and shoulders best tech is the BEV. ICE cars will still have a niche though, there are still places in the world where you can't plug in. You can drive across Australia's Outback in an ute with the bed loaded with extra fuel tanks. You could technically do it in a BEV too, but you'd have to stop every 300 miles, set up solar cells and sit there for a day or more waiting for the car to charge.
Just as Elon pointed out the critical roles of both Daimler and Toyota in the survival of Tesla it seems to me we should be quite supportive of the huge influence Nissan has had globally with the Leaf, and the French and Japanese domestic producers have had in popularising small urban vehicles market. Both of those had the signal advantage in already having an established micro=vehicle market. (note: as a former owner of both a Honda N600 and an S800, plus driver of a BMW Isetta 300 I admit to bias in favor of microcars)
Overall microcars are not popular. Daimler is losing its shirt on Smartcar. I think they lose $5000 for every car sold.
So, NIssan has a bit of first-mover disadvantage in the popular BEV class. They have produced more than any other non-Chinese builder (we don't often discuss BYD or the others but they are by far the largest producers of BEV's in the world) and sell the Denza luxury cars that they developed in a 50:50 JV with Daimler.
China is another world as far as the car market goes. I believe a fair number of their cars wouldn't be considered highway safe in western countries. Another thing is China is one of the few growing car markets. Almost anything will sell. In the west, it's mostly a replacement market and buyers are more finicky. Supply exceeds demand for the most part.
With all the development and growth around the world it seems to me Nissan will do fine just as soon as their own battery supplies grow and their other investments in BEV infrastructure mature. Frankly, despite all I have said above I have no question at all that Tesla Model S helped catalyze the German OEM's who were in turn driven by the EU and domestic European regulators who were given confidence by all the pretty decent short range EV's avalable there but above all by the realization that the Model S did it all without many compromises.
In short my own OEM kudos, just after Testa itself, go to Daimler, Toyota and Nissan. More or less in that order.
Nissan will probably be one of the survivors, but the Leaf's popularity is falling. Oddly I've seen a couple of Leafs around town the last few months. I hadn't seen any for a long time and now they are getting common.