1) Niche high cost vehicle sold in low volumes(Roadster)
2) Medium cost luxury vehicle sold in medium volumes(Model S)
3) Low cost high volume vehicle sold in high volumes. (Model ???)
Obviously this is a gross over simplification but I imagine that part of the engineering that is going on at TESLA is figuring out how to build 3 cheaper and at a higher quality then anybody else.
Aren't they already trying to do that? Chevy's Volt, Nissan's Leaf, Ford apparently makes a fully PEV Focus now, as does Honda with a version of the Fit, and Toyota's gotta be working on the Prius...
Renault have a small electric hatchback going on sale in the spring in the UK at £13,650 (including a grant):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/renaul...
Personally, I'd be far more likely to buy a small electric hatchback than any of the Tesla models.
What Tesla has done is made an electric car and marketed it as more luxurious and different from what's on the market. The Leaf is for hippies, the Volt is nowhere to be seen. The Tesla on the other hand is sexy.
A bigger concern is how Tesla will expand from this market. For most manufacturers, the high-end cars are not the major money-makers, and the quantities they move are just too small (Lexus sells over 8 IS/GS for each LS they sell). We'll see if they manage to expand from the niche they're in.
The Nissan Leaf just isn't a good deal. If Tesla can beat range anxiety in a package that costs $20k or less, then they'll have a winner. Sexy still sells with econobox cars. (Fiat 500?)
I really doubt this. This is the classic innovators dilemma. The investments in electric don't look good enough yet for the car companies to go "all in". Their entire supply chain is built around making and selling cars that run on gas engines. Tesla isn't beholden to any kind of entrenched thinking and thus can build up an advantage here that is going to take the big car companies a while to catch up to once electric cars go mainstream. (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120/Screenshots/innovators_dilemma_c...)
It's one of the examples of patents being done right, to protect innovation.
That is a disadvantage. Along with their size that represents massive costs and massive inertia.
The actual threat from incumbents is regulation(lobbying for) and legal. Both of which they can afford due to massive size and have established the "infrastructure" for.
Mission accomplished and all that.
They will pull every dirty trick in the book, i.e. Laywer up, before they build a competing car to the Model S. (see Tucker 1948: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Tucker_Sedan)
Then there are more modern scenarios like the Bricklin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricklin_SV-1) and the DeLorean.
All of those never made it as far as Tesla has, for a lot of reasons, but failed mostly the Big Three's stranglehold on the market. In the Bricklin's case I would point to the parts/supplies cartel at the time.
Elon has a good opportunity in today's market with the decline of the Big Three's influence.