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Comment by BigBubbleButt | Hacker News Reader

That's certainly part of it. But I think it's also the same reason Kodak invented the digital camera and then ignored it. It was more profitable to keep doing what they were doing, and they were so invested in it.

The automobile industry has invested hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars into R&D for the internal combustion engine.

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Kodak is a good example because it is a case of the innovator's dilemma [1], and I think that applies here too. They knew digital was the future, but growing existing markets was always more profitable and politically sustainable. To big auto, EV markets appear too small and not worth investing in compared to growing the ICE markets. Until they're not.

[1] https://innovationmanagement.se/2017/05/24/the-innovators-di...

No doubt that is true as well. The fact that Tesla dragged the entire industry towards EVs means that there was inertia. But I'm skeptical that Tesla could have competed in the 80s, 90s or even early 2000s. Late 2000s and early 2010s was when all kinds of technologies from all over the place, made EVs much more competitive against ICEs.

To be short, it was the batteries. They were just too damn big, heavy, and expensive per amp hour for anything more than a commuter car. Tesla struggled with batteries early on and ended up building their own factory in the end.

That said, there were definitely people excited about electric commuter cars and the big automakers were disdainful of them. GM's famous EV1 that they refused to sell (only lease) because they wanted the power to destroy them the instant the government got off their back about electric cars.

There was a missed market opportunity for a startup that did electric commuter cars in the 90s and 2000s. Maybe not a huge userbase, but very loyal. Of course a small company would face the same dealership franchise headwinds that Tesla had to fight and might not succeed, especially in a world with relatively little Internet connectivity and less comfort with shopping and buying online.

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