To Elon’s point the Model S has been out since 2013 and there’s still nothing as good on the market from any other manufacturer.
They have a huge head start to say nothing of their charging network and the issues legacy brands will have fighting with dealers.
Sales of the S are flat and the profits hardly make a dent towards my suggested $5 billion earnings.
> They have a huge head start
In some areas.
Hybrid cars have much of the same technology and no charging station limitations - they compete with full electrics. Hybrids sold 4 million in US 2016 compared to Japan's 5 million sold.
> To say nothing of their charging network and the issues legacy brands will have fighting with dealers.
Sure, but it looks like Tesla needs say 10x more sales to get $5 billion earnings. Another competitor only needs to deploy a little faster to catch up.
Maintaining a high profit per car seems to depend on selling a premium product, or presuming that other car makers cannot compete. When shifting to the mass market (more than say 1 million vehicles per year), surely the profit per vehicle has to decrease sharply - even if Tesla can earn more than the industry $1k per vehicle (from the quote below).
From 2017: "Recently, Tesla’s valuation surpassed both Ford’s and General Motors’. BMW is among the other major carmakers in the rearview mirror. The logic of this is intriguing, given that Ford, for example, is coming off its second-best year in its 112-year history, earning $4.6 billion while selling more than 5.5 million cars worldwide. General Motors earned $9.4 billion selling 9.8 million vehicles." From article: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/26/15872468/tesla-gm...