> Tesla or one of the Chinese or Indian manufacturers who produce low-end EVs in higher quantity than Tesla
I don't see Tesla ever becoming a gargantuan multinational carmaker giant like Toyota or GM - it's just not in their corporate ethos. I compare Tesla to Apple: they're technological leaders who set the benchmarks (and own the patents) but who also keep a relatively small and simple product matrix. There's loads of computer form-factors that Apple doesn't produce products for (e.g. rugged laptops, industrial control computers, "affordable" computers, and so on) - the demand for these products which are typically lower-margin are met by other manufacturers and I see Tesla being fine with this: let Toyota, GM, etc stress over meeting demand for a sub-$30k BEV while making hardly any profit.
I think the importance of self-driving / autonomous cars should also be considered. GM has Cruise, but Toyota, Ford, Honda, etc are either uninterested for some reason, or hoping Google or Apple will license them their Waymo or Titan system, or playing catchup very, very slowly - given Tesla is looking like they'll make their FSD an open-beta this year (and a public 1.0 release before the year's end, I hope!) that further widens their moat and with their current (overinflated, I admit) valuation that could see them buy-out a smaller carmarker to cement themselves should anything detrimental happen in the medium-term.
And the vision of becoming that is not exactly new. See https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-j... for Elon Musk laying out that plan back in 2006.
And he's been sticking to the roadmap. For example that blog post was the first public announcement that they would eventually produce a family sedan called the Model 3. And indeed they eventually produced a family sedan..and called it the Model 3.
Oh wow, I never saw that, but that's exactly what I saw they were doing and now everything makes sense.
Given they've been literally telegraphing their moves right-up-until the decision to do self-driving tech, I'm surprised bigger automakers haven't reacted at all until now, at which point they're lagging so far behind it's just depressing.
Before either hybrids or EVs were commercially viable, The Innovator's Dilemma included a case study done for the car industry on the switch to electric. The case study concluded that, based on the history of disruptive innovation, the requirements of driving, and the trends in batteries, electric vehicles would become economically viable around 2020. It also concluded that traditional manufacturers would pursue hybrids but would have trouble moving into the EV market.
As a prior correlated example, shortly before steam became competitive for trans-oceanic travel, sailboat manufacturers briefly produced hybrid sail/steam ships. In so doing they made acceptable compromises to sail to allow for the reliability of steam near land. However none of the companies that did that survived into the steamship era.
In fact every detail of that case study has happened as predicted except that they predicted that EVs would start at the bottom of the market and move up, while Tesla started at the top and moved down. However the jury is still out on who will wind up winning the EV market - Tesla or one of the Chinese or Indian manufacturers who produce low-end EVs in higher quantity than Tesla. If it is China or India, then that case study will work out in every detail.
But the point remains. Designing an electric engine whose job is to be a boost to a gasoline engine, compromising both power and range, is not on a natural technological path to a pure electric vehicle. And history suggests that companies that go that route will have trouble when pressure comes to switch to the more natural technology.
Therefore Toyota's migration to hybrids is not only not a move to EVs, but it was both predicted and is suggestive that they would have trouble moving to pure EVs.