The fact remains that none of the existing car manufacturers decided to even try to compete with Tesla until it was painfully obvious that Tesla's going to "make it" (i.e. Model S) and that consumers love their electric cars.
That happened about 5 or so years ago. Not 10 years ago. Not 15 years ago. It happened because of Tesla/Musk, and would likely be very much delayed if it wasn't for him.
They had a chance to improve technology, satisfy consumer demand (Apple showed a decade ago that consumers don't know what they want) and help save the planet, but they didn't. Shame on them.
Edit: I don't want to be argumentative, I think we mostly agree. I'm just saying that the rest of the companies all missed a huge market opportunity, same as I keep saying for all computer companies that make shittier laptops than Apple...
You're just completely wrong on the chronology.
The federal tax credits were in place for the 2009 tax year: https://www.tesla.com/blog/tax-incentives-why-roadster-costs.... The Roadster was released in late 2008 (only 150 units shipped in 2008). Almost all of Tesla's capital raise came after 2010: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2018/04/25/a-brief-h....
> The fact remains that none of the existing car manufacturers decided to even try to compete with Tesla until it was painfully obvious that Tesla's going to "make it" (i.e. Model S) and that consumers love their electric cars.
Again, your chronology is completely wrong. By the time the Model S came out, GM had already been selling the Chevy Volt for almost two years. And throughout both cars' run, the Chevy Volt has been selling at approximately the same volume as the Model S (both car sold 110-130k units through the end of 2017). The Nissan Leafs also came out in 2010, and more Leafs had been sold as of the beginning of 2018 than total Tesla vehicles.
To recap: other car manufacturers (GM and Toyota) were first to market with EVs, in the late 1990s. They were also first to market with mainstream popular EVs, in 2010, two years before the Model S.
Finally we can even take things like the federal automotive bailouts. Ford, for instance, took a sub-inflation rate loan of $5.9 billion from the taxpayer, which they unsurprisingly have not paid back. It was supposed to be used to develop fuel efficient vehicles. A literal check for $5.9 billion just blows every point in your list out of the water. Yet, Ford not only dawdled but most recently announced they've cancelled every sedan/car in their line except the Mustang and one upcoming vehicle. That leaves them 90% of their lineup distributed towards trucks, SUVs, and commercial vehicles. And the next time gas prices spike, we can bet they'll come begging for another handout from the taxpayer. Just brilliant business acumen by these guys.
Tesla has done a good job making popular, well-rated cars. But this idea that they were "first" while others were "sitting on their asses" is just completely factually incorrect. Competing car manufacturers dipped their toes into EVs years before Tesla even existed, and everyone rushed to build mainstream EVs in the same 2007-2012 time frame, with Nissan and GM releasing their products first.[1]
[1] Also, I don't see the relevance of the Ford loan? I'm not the one trying to add a moral dimension to the history of EVs. There is none. The relevance of the federal subsidies is not "oh, Tesla took subsidies." But rather that subsidies were necessary to make EVs attractive to consumers. The EV1 was canceled because consumer surveys in the late 1990s showed that you'd have to sell an EV for $28,000 less than a gas car to get consumers to buy it. Rising gas prices closed up a lot of that gap, along with advances in battery technology improving range. But the $10,000 or so in federal and state tax credits also played a huge role in making EVs palatable to consumers.
1) Increasingly more expensive gas and more rigorous fuel-consumption standards.
2) Massive increase in lithium ion battery production from consumer electronics;
3) A willingness of VCs to bankroll years of massive losses;
4) A federal program of offering massive subsidies to electric cars.
These things didn't exist 15 years ago. (Which is not to say that Tesla doesn't deserve a lot of credit for capitalizing on them, but Tesla's success is not evidence that existing car manufacturers were "sitting on their asses." It's also just factually wrong. Toyota and GM both produced electric cars in late 1990s, early aughts, way before Tesla was founded. But at the time, consumer surveys showed that they would only buy electric cars if they were sold for tens of thousands of dollars less than a gasoline car. All those phenomena closed that gap: exploding gas prices made gasoline cars relatively more expensive; federal and stage governments offered up to $10,000 in total incentives for buying an EV; and lithium ion battery technology resulted in major improvements in weight and range.)