There is no competition to Model S now. But TSLA evaluation is based on Gen 3 - coming out in 17/18. So, the question is what do we expect the competition to be in 17/18. The article doesn't answer that question. Do you really think Leaf will still have the same range 7 years after it's introduction ? Will Infiniti LE be delayed for more than 4 years ? Will i3 be the same car in 4 years ? To answer some of these questions we need to figure out what is cooking in the labs at Nissan or GM (Envia ?) or BMW/Samsung or LG now - that may get commercial in 3 years. We can't find that out easily ...
If there's a common thread in my post, it's that while the technology is important, it's not the biggest long-term key to Tesla's success. Only Tesla approaches Electric Drive not as something to be shoe-horned into an existing ICE-based structure, but as something that's inherently better. No other company in the world is thinking this way. All the major car companies are thinking is how to be "as good as ICE," and all except Nissan and BMW are thinking about reaching Compliance with the law. But even those two have such limited vision for how good an EV can be - their vision is city cars for people who want to be green.
Tesla's thinking is so disruptive because they approach it from a "electric is better, how do we leverage that" mentality that affects all aspects of what they do. And because of that, there's no reason to believe that Nissan, GM, or BMW will catch up on Tesla's half a decade technology lead in less than half a decade. And even if their BODs had the mentality, there's no way they could reinvent their decades old company within a half decade. You think that given the limited success of the Leaf that Ghosen is popular within Nissan BOD or with his management team so much that they want to do more EVs?
I worked at a high tech company in the 1990s that went through two shifts in the company's main product and goals. I saw how marketing, product management, and even engineering fought the new direction for the first change, and how upper management tried to kill the second change multiple times. Only our strong CEO was able to continually push his vision and eventually make the new directions successful, which was really good since the previous products quickly peaked and the company would have gone down the tubes. Change is not easy, and even if Ghosen really still believes in EVs and even if BMW's BOD believes in EVs, they have management teams with oil in their veins and a company mentality that runs on gasoline.
The Innovator's Dilemma is a history lesson that shows us that history repeats itself and even companies that want to make the transition most often can't.
So, what would be a warning sign? If one of the big car companies starts a new brand that is exclusively electric. If I were Carlos Ghosen or Norbert Reithofer I would spin off a new car company, like Toyota did with Lexus or GM did with Saturn. I'd give them autonomy and money and let them compete with my offerings. That would take billions of dollars, hundreds of engineers, and years of a depressed stock price to live through. I predict that unless we see that happening Tesla is in little danger of being overtaken.
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