> antiquitated plants to upgrade/maintain

LOL, it's Tesla that is way behind in manufacturing. They had trouble hitting their production targets, and they still have quality problems. Toyota/Volkswagen etc will have zero trouble switching their production lines to electric cars, and when they do they will manufacture cheaper, faster, and better.

> old supply chains to wind down, new supply chains to wind up

Again, advantage at putting together supply chains is with traditional manufacturers, because of their experience.

EDIT: Tesla seems to have problems even hiring workers for their factory in Berlin, never heard of any German manufacturer having similar problem.

Maybe some people think that, but sometimes people are deluded or simply are investing based on the greater fool theory.

The latter reason means that even the market as a whole might not actually believe in the current market cap, in the long term.

I'm personally super skeptical of this market cap. I've been renting a Tesla Model 3 the last couple weeks. It's an awesome car that I would recommend to anyone. When you first drive it you can appreciate what a good job Tesla have done to make it feel like a car from the future. But at the end of the day it's a car. It's got lots of small flaws too, and the self-driving features have scared the shit out of me due to errors they made more than a few times already.

Based on this experience it seems completely implausible that Tesla will be able to keep up this "car from the future" experience for very long. How? They're not a leader in self driving, and even if they were, why would they remain so indefinitely? What other innovations would justify this image? People will get used to electric vehicles very quickly, that won't feel new anymore before long.

I think you are overestimating the rationality of car customers. Legacy car companies have been pulling a slight of hand for years. Build an aspirational dynamic brand that delivers compromised products that hurt the customer. People will become financially and emotionally invested and then you have them. The long lasting metal seal can be replaced with plastic. Safe emissions can be replaced with a defeat device. And practical small cars can be replaced with city cars that are too small for a stroller/pram. Brilliant!

> I honestly don't see the ICE manufacturers really having an edge when it comes to the future of transportation.

I honestly don't see that it's difficult for ICE manufacturers to compete in the EV space. We're seeing most ICE companies at least dipping their toes into the EV space, and in some cases they're going all in (Hyundai/Kia, VW, for example) and offering strong alternatives to Tesla.

If anything EV seems easier than ICE

I think they still have a significant lead in actual production manufacturing engineering. It's one of the primary things they do, and have some of the best minds in the world for it. I think Tesla can catch up, but right now Tesla has a very outmoded plant itself, its a former GM plant built in the 60's and rebuilt for NUMI in the 80's. While they're building new ones, a majority of the big three's plants date from 1980-2005, and are newer in structure.

If you talk about how cars are built, all auto manufactures seem to follow the same basic model to build cars, robotic welded bodies, a mix of manual and robotic paint and a moving assembly line to put the rest on - everyone does it the same way with some minor variations. Similarly Toyotas JIT supply system is used the world over by all auto manufacturers because it improves the balance sheet.

Unless Tesla figures out how to manufacture cars with much lower carbon emissions (I mean, the manufacturing of the cars themselves), Tesla is not going to fare that much better than the legacies.

I hope they do figure it out...

>antiquitated plants to upgrade/maintain

Compare a state-of-the-art BMW plant to any Tesla plant. Modern auto OEMs have been full automation for a long time.