Why is it going to be huge?
btilly made an excellent comment as well on how it fits the 'new tech eats the old tech' model. The upshot is that at some point in the future all cars will be electric, period. The reasons are pretty clear, its a superior way to build power trains if you can get the performance, range, and refueling issues solved. Tesla has, basically solved those problems for a market that is somewhat price insensitive.
What is funny is he is playing out of the 1901 Automobile handbook, where, if you recall, Standard Oil started putting up gas stations everywhere even when people didn't have cars. Because it encouraged people to get cars. Elon is putting up supercharging stations along popular driving routes because who doesn't want to drive to visit when the gas is "free" ?
Nobody who has heard his plan doesn't think that if successful he will be one of the worlds top automakers. The only question is whether or not he can pull it off. And as more and more hard problems are shown to be overcome, the more people believe he will. And the stock goes up because its really under priced for what, in the fullness of time, will be a 100B company :-)
Don't want to nitpick, but I think we're still a long way from "refueling issues" being solved world-wide in the near-term (15 to 25 years), only because electric power transmission is a damn-hard problem to solve at a global scale.
I remember reading an article linked from here a couple of months ago about how one big UK power company was handling the almost instantaneous switching on of millions of tea kettles after some BBC show had ended (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5018560). Now imagine the same scenario in a country like Nigeria (population approaching 200 million), or Brazil, or Indonesia, but with cars instead of mundane tea kettles and with a not so top-notch electrical infrastructure instead of the mature UK power grid.
I do hope though that Tesla will end up being a $100+ billion company, if only to demonstrate that true innovation can still bring big financial gains in this day and age.
So my reference to refueling was around the time issue the GP mentioned, typical electric vehicles take a lot of time to transfer the same number of joules of energy that a gasoline car can transfer in a couple of minutes. That said, lets look a bit more at your concern.
You wrote : "only because electric power transmission is a damn-hard problem to solve at a global scale."
You are absolutely correct that a generalized solution for global power distribution of electricity is an unsolved problem. However you must be careful applying the general problem to a more specific case. Car charging has some nice features, one you can start and stop the electricity to it over the course of a charge and it won't notice (it will just take longer), its a constant load vs a varying load. These two aspects of it combine to make some creative solutions possible. One of them is fuel cell recharging.
Fuel cells can generate energy reliably from hydrocarbons but they really don't like rapid changes in load, they are most efficient when they can deliver a steady stream of current. So from an engineering perspective you could build a fuel cell based 'supercharger' type station, where you pour in 10 - 20 gallons of gasoline and plug in. Finesses both the long distance transmission of power and the availability. But its just one of a number of creative ways to fuel cars which want electricity rather than gasoline.
One of my favorite nuclear power 'hacks' was to build a 10GW nuclear plant in the middle of the desert, and next to it build a solar panel plant. Using using power (and heat) from the nuclear plant you melt silicon, refine it into crystals, smelt aluminum and build solar panels which you then truck off to places that need power. You are essentially putting the scary nuclear plant far from humans in a place they don't want to live anyway, and making a way to generate power which you then transport to places where you want power.
If you put enough solar panels in your village in Nairobi to charge up your Tesla truck over the course of a week then once a week used your truck to carry goods from the village into the city, I still think that would be a benefit to the village, but I cannot prove that.
In full disclosure, when the conversation originally came up (when discussing nuclear vs solar a while ago) we just did the basic math/materials analysis and did not do a full operational analysis on the idea.
But how many people care about how a car drives vs. what they have now?
I own a 911 but I can tell you my mother has no interest and no utility in that car nor does my father. When it just went in for service the dealer gave me a hybrid Cayenne as a loaner. That car has much more utility than the 911. But I have no interest in it at all. Cost of fuel has nothing to do with it either. It's to big (I've had that type of car before when I needed something with that kind of space and it comes in handy).
So my question is, of the things that Tesla is good for NOW (not in 5 or 10 years) what features does it have that the general public cares about that will drive sales? Because I fail to see that the "driving" experience will be one of them. I mean it's not like I get into the Porsche every day when I drive it and say "wow this is so super I'm so happy". After a bit you just get used to it.
This question : "Of the things that Tesla is good for NOW (not in 5 or 10 years) what features does it have that the general public cares about that will drive sales?"
Is what is leading your thinking astray. The model S isn't designed for the "general public" any more than the BMW 5 series is designed for the "general public". A better question is this "How much of the $85,000 sport sedan market can Tesla capture with this offering?" And the answer to that question is "quite a bit."
Now since that is a pretty high margin business to be in (they are luxury cars after all) the follow on question is can they use the profits from that market to enter the $40,000 sport sedan market? Or the $40,000 small truck market? or any of a number of lower price points.
I think the answer is yes (of course), and I think that the challenge of those more cost effective markets are that people become more skeptical of 'new' cars and want 'established' cars. Which is why Lexus and Acura started with luxury cars and moved down market rather than the other way.
I can only speak for myself but will add also my observation of other car buyers over the years.
The noise a vehicle makes matters. The fact that the Tesla makes no noise is a drawback to me and I suspect others in this category. I like the feedback and noise that an engine makes. (Think Harley Davidson and how that sounds and how that's a positive to buyers of that vehicle).
I don't have links or research to back this up. Just what I feel is the case.
Also one of the reason people buy cars in this category is because of things you can't put your finger on performance wise. It's a luxury product and there is a certain amount of head baggage that makes it attractive to you. There are people who won't buy anything but a 911 (no boxster, no cayman etc.) because it isn't the car they dreamed about as a kid (that of course will change with the aging population I'm just pointing it out behaviorally.)
That said it would be interesting to know of the buyers of the Tesla what car they owned before that car.
Meh, this is a minor problem. They could probably just slap some speakers on there to make some noise if this became a real concern. In any case, at lower prices, people are just interested in utility. And once silent cars become universal at lower price points (maybe in 20-30 years), they'll probably ban cars that do make noise, just to reduce noise pollution.
It doesn't seem like you tried at all to understand the interest.
The Model S is direct drive... so no gears.
I think general usage of the term means that it fits Tesla -- even I f it's not technically correct
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5681695 for my explanation of why. (Which is just an application of a well-known theory from a well-known book.)