FYI this project wasn't built with Panasonic / Tesla / Gigafactory batteries. They were purchased from Samsung:

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/30/tesla-using-samsung-sdi...

Wow, that's even more impressive in some ways. That was a huge gamble to rely on another company (though perhaps they already have a good relationship I'm not aware of) and it's great that the system was "easy" enough to build with different parts (though, again, perhaps they've always kept multiple vendors in mind)

Tesla's core innovation is that they don't give a fuck about nonsense opinions, they care about facts - science and engineering.

Plenty of other viable technologies exist, we just need some rich science-aware people to help us roll them out.

Maybe little more than big-time name recognition and a first-mover advantage (but I imagine there's some good engineering and a few patents in there, too). That worked long enough for IBM :)