The Prius is fine. Practical vehicles. Probably still a more reasonable choice for many. But, Tesla made electric cars look like the future, even to the average person.

I must add that I am not really a Tesla zealot. I drive a Civic, Teslas seem too expensive (not necessarily over priced, just too expensive for me) and have their fair share of issues. But what they did for the perception of EVs is different than what anyone else has done imo.

The Prius at least fit into Toyota's market segment.

[1] This is not totally true. There were some once off electric cars in the 1990's that were sporty. Friend dated a women that owned one. It only had a range of about 40-50 miles but it was FAST.

Tesla did a great job at making EV cool, there's no question about it.

BUT, economics of that are still TBD. They still fail to achieve any sustainable profit as a business, few years after their mass market vehicle debuted, and have to keep on raising money, on very unfavorable terms.

They struggle to produce it cheaply enough, at least as of right now. Manufacturing, at scale and within costs is really really hard. Tesla's initial math for cracking the economy was based on full automation of the production, that failed spectacularly. As a result they have a lot of human labor costs they didn't plan for, so problem of optimizing it got even harder.

Did Tesla made desirable product? Yes, of course. Can they crack the economy of it? We'll see.

You’re correct that Tesla’s future and costs are uncertain, but that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is that the production cost of a Model 3-type EV will never be as high as it was in 2018. It will never be as high as it is in 2019. Even without miraculous supply chain improvements, the cost of lithium batteries and electric drivetrains is on a relentless downward path. If Tesla can make one now at $10 in profit (obviously they make more than that), then whichever company is doing so in 5-8 years will be earning thousands in profit. And if the manufacturer is not BMW, it will be the end of that company as a viable competitor.

Investors can lose their shirt on a viable company. Just as they can make bank on a company that's a flash in the pan. Investors can often make money on companies that are actually failing and going to fail. There is probably an correlation between how hardball the company plays it's investors and the companies ultimate viability.

Same with the electric RAV4, which I believe was the first EV in the past 20 years or so. They made it, and then barely changed anything at all to it 20 years later.

Toyota doesn't care about EVs and never did, even when it struck them in the face.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-car-timeline.html

Research more about the 1997-2000 period mentioned there. Sure Tesla had a part to play in the adoption of EVs but it is more about existing at the right time and bringing on the right (for the business) ceo than about any special vision.

ADD: what actually begat the Roadster was AC Propulsion’s 2003 Tzero [1], a company which can be traced back to the famous EV1 (of “Who Killed The Electric Car”).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero

no.

the car mfrs already knew you could build such a thing. the reason they didn’t is they had no reason to build a loss leader product.

But now the Model S is the best sedan on the road at any price, and I’ve driven the 2019 BMWs and others. The interiors are cluttered up with incoherent “luxury” features to try to justify the price point, but nothing works that well together except for the drivetrain itself. I don’t want a crystal shifter knob and eight different buttons to lower the rear seats and a head-up display that occasionally knows the speed limit and iPads protruding from the seat backs and a lane-keeping feature that randomly jerks the wheel. This stuff makes the retracting door handles on the Tesla seem almost practical.

I do want a car that drives great and looks great and minimizes maintenance and running costs. No ICE drivetrain can deliver the same acceleration thrill as the Tesla drivetrain, so what’s the point? The only thing left is range and hauling power, so pickup trucks, vans, and for now, SUVs.

Of course, some won’t value what it can do, but the hate over minor details is not justified.

And of course I am too old and cynical, and want my stick shift back, but the driving experience in Model S was very much blah. That's one of those things that you can do well only if you know how to build cars, not computers on wheels.

As for ownership experience, maybe it is that bad with BMW, although I doubt it, but I've never had any problems with Audi, and it has been far more pleasant than what I've heard of Tesla...

What's a niche golf cart is the US is a mainstream car in France (or Japan). There's a reason why Renault's equivalent of the Nissan Leaf, called Renault Zoe, is even smaller than the Leaf: it's tailored to the French urban market.

Interestingly the German market is probably more vulnerable to Tesla than the French one (since after all this is about BMW). Tesla is after the like of BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, etc. But not the like of Renault, Peugeot, Nissan, Honda, Volkswagen, Opel, Fiat, etc. (Though of course Volkswagen owns Audi, so it's not all that simple...).

As a New-Yorker (currently, hopefully not for too long) I stand on the side: I don't even have a valid US driver license. I mean, what could I possibly do with a car in NYC?

But huge majority of people aren't car enthusiasts, so they don't care. They want affordable and easy way of moving from point A to point B.

Getting car people excited is great. But you need to target average joe if you want to change the world.

I'm sure it was perfect for some people - just like a smart car. But it would fall down for typical daily usage for lots of people who don't care about cars, but do have a highway commute, say.

It was an ok car if you never, ever needed to use a highway.

The leaf was always too compromised to be viable. The model S and model X at least competed, and the model 3 is rolling most of it's competition along traditional germans.

No one got excited about Leafs and Priuses, but there are lots of videos about people drag racing Model S.

This... is not true. Lots of people were excited by the Prius, specifically. In the 2000s that car was so hot that it was a mark of status for Hollywood celebrities to be seen driving them.

The Leaf, yeah, nobody ever got too excited by that. But the Prius was genuinely A Thing.

In a hairshirt sort of way.