The key innovation to make Tesla a success was regenerative braking along with the transmission to make it work.
Just replacing the engine with an electric motor and batteries works, but is significantly inferior.
Just replacing the engine with an electric motor and batteries works, but is significantly inferior.
Even when you fast forward to modern production cars, the Prius had a regenerative braking system almost a decade before the Tesla Roadster came out.
I always expected the tinfoil hats to raise up when many mainstream series made fun of prius owners being pretentious dorks, or when Musk came out of the closet as a republican and everyone started hating the brand [1].
I half expected them to say that it was the work of big-oil.
[1] https://slate.com/business/2023/07/elon-musk-tesla-owners-tw...