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.
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 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 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.
I hope they do figure it out...
Compare a state-of-the-art BMW plant to any Tesla plant. Modern auto OEMs have been full automation for a long time.