And they evidently are working on it. But to say "release it now, don't make me wait 5 years" is beyond ignorant.

There's a cultural difference among traditional automakers in which new innovations are withheld from being released as they are not required to maintain a competitive position. This is very different from the attitude in the Valley/startups in which there appears to be a genuine desire to advance innovation of mankind.

As someone who has followed the car industry closely for many years, I disagree. Most automakers have been competing to survive on many dimensions throughout their life. It's just that Tesla has added more dimensions to the mix that automakers didn't prepare for, and playing catch-up takes time with such a complex product.

True but I think his point was "it's not my problem that you didn't start your R&D in a timely manner...say 5 years ago".

Anyways that's what I read into it.

As consumers we assume hugely successful historical automotive powerhouses like BMW would have something ready to go NOW because they've been working on it already for 5 years (or ten years+ considering Prius).

Maybe not always fair, but it's generally what people are going to assume.

Beyond ignorant? That's polite.

Maybe if the OEMs had spent the last 10 years designing and building electric cars instead of putting out diesel agents that broke the law in dozens of countries they would be in a better position.