The problem is that multi-layered problem solving is superhard to execute. It's not that it's hard to find a solution that would be orders better, but it's just that it's risky, as it's an all-or-nothing path. It at least requires a lot of confidence for the existing market.

With waterfall-kind of planning, that would work. Unfortunately it got a bad name in the '90s and early '00s. The wild-west of inexperienced developers, who needed to solve business problems they didn't understand, combined with clients who didn't understand technology.

I believe this is a great period to do bigger things, and you see this happening with for example SpaceX, Tesla and Apple: space is happening again, companies are creating super specialized and complex ICs, there's actual business value and consumer value being produced, and projects are reasonably on time with these companies. This in constract with companies who, what it seems, do more of an iterative approach: Facebook, Google, Amazon. No huge innovation going there.

Aren't those companies great examples of this though? They have a great vision, but really try to play inside the existing system except for one thing. Tesla for example haven't yet done much innovation that the other car companies don't, except for betting hard on electricity (or more specifically, batteries). A more radical approach challenging the whole system on all fronts would be to re-think personal transportation (perhaps cars VS horses is a better example of that). Sure, they realize that in order to make electrical cars viable, they have to put up chargers. But that's really just a means to an end (batteries/electricity as fuel). Same goes with how they sell cars - they have to in order to break through the market, it's not something that is necessarily core to their business or why they exist. They exist to replace ICEs with battery driven mirrors. The rest can stay. (autonomous driving might be more revolutionary if they succeed and create something different than what cars are today, but that's a lot of ifs and buts)

Apple is also very much in that corner. The smartphone existed long before the iPhone. They just packaged it and polished the concept so it made sense for a broader market (and they are/were really great at that), but how radical were they really? Revolutionary after a while perhaps (if you can be a slow revolutionary - seems a little bit contradictory), but technologically they just put a lot of existing techs together and packaged it differently than the existing players for a different market/crowd and had tremendous timing (I bet the smartphone revolution was coming either way, they just helped define the concept and bridge the gap from early adopters to mass market).

You, like many others, me sometime ago including, are missing the point that can be illustrated with Apple - Jobs broke the carrier control over software that is running on the device which, until Jobs, had been a given unquestionable fact of life like the sky is blue. That is what unleashed the revolution, not the nice piece of hardware which would be just a brick under ATT control like many before.

Consider that Tesla is still an abject failure on their goal of converting the world’s transport to sustainable energy.

I don’t think the strategy you outlined will be enough. In addition to “advance batteries” I believe “full self-driving” as well as “mobility as a service”, “radically production-driven design”, and possibly “car bundled with energy production and storage devices” will be required for Tesla to hit their goal.

If you take those 4-5 things together I do believe that constitutes a total reinvention of the automobile.