Traditional car makers are just extremely slow to adjust, because they have never faced any real disruption. They've effectively been selling the same product for decades with only some marginal and incremental improvements. Tesla, on the other hand, is using the SV model of doing business: First create an MVP, then iterate rapidly until you have something that is so good, it can steamroll the market. When Tesla was founded, traditional car makers laughed at them, claiming they would never be able to even build a proper car. These comments are eerily similar to what the Palm CEO had to say about Apple and the IPhone ten years ago: That a couple of computer people from SV would never be able to build a proper phone.
Traditional car companies are entirely unprepared to deal with the kind disruption that is coming to their market. And that does not only concern EVs but also self-driving cars and the sharing economy. I don't think they can stop Tesla. The real question is how much of their business they will be able to save.