It seems like you are thinking about "tech" from a value proposition standpoint (i.e. that car manufacturers are building value through technology, and thus that makes them a tech company).

This article is referring to the term used in more of a financial context - referring to how the company will grow and scale. In this context, "tech company" refers to a company with very low marginal CoGS that exponentially decays with scale.

The distinction is highly relevant if you're deciding how to value a stock. For whatever reason the public markets had been valuing Tesla (and every other EV startup) as though it was going to benefit from tech-like high margins and free distribution.