Competition is not standing still, waiting on anyone to catch up. This may be critical capability for further growth. Reinventing the wheel and learning from the scratch may not be the most efficient way to go about it. Tesla's team is most likely already working on better ways.
Yes, this is a truism in the auto industry. The bar is continuously rising, and all manufacturers must continuously improve to keep from being left behind. Tesla certainly is smart enough to do that, based on what they have done so far.
... and they are going to have to continue to create stunning innovations. Consider the risks that they will have to deal with:
- A lot of minds will have to change for BEVs to become truly mainstream. Remember the attempts to introduce the diesel into the US market? Even though diesels are now quiet and create no fumes, many US buyers remember only the bad old days and won't touch them, in spite of their higher efficiency and better torque.
- There will be lower-priced competitors. Sometimes the public wants something that's cheaper and "good enough" rather than the best. Remember the Beta versus VHS debate?
- There is a major trade-off between having a high-priced niche product, and a cheaper high-volume product. Tesla will find that it is a whole different ballgame to build > 100,000 vehicles per year as opposed to 25,000. It can be done, but a lot of things (all the way into their conveyor line) will have to change. And that assumes that the market will absorb > 100,000 BEVs at a price point that doesn't lose money on every car (see my first point, above).
- Tesla is investing major capital into the gigafactory, and they will need to help to invent the need for all that battery manufacturing capacity. All that capital investment competes with the major investments that need to be made into increasing car building capacity and quality control.
Having said all that, Tesla is well on the way to becoming the "Apple" of car brands, a sort of boutique product that people are ready and eager to buy at a higher price (I know that I sure am!). If they have strategies to manage all these risks (I expect that they do) they can be very successful long term.