Yep, it's a classic "new market entrant is racing to become the incumbent before the incumbent(s) can copy their innovations" situation.
It's a good illustration of why software is such a different paradigm than traditional physical economies; VCs can pour funding into a software company and since the marginal costs are close to zero, the innovator can blitz-scale and take over the market before the incumbent has time to react. However when "scaling" means building global logistics infrastructure, including factories for batteries and factories for cars, it's a lot harder to get the drop on the incumbents.
I think the GP's comment is spot on though, if Tesla fails to win this race, they will still have been the driving force in bringing EV adoption forward by 5-10 years (perhaps more), which is an incredible achievement.
It's a good illustration of why software is such a different paradigm than traditional physical economies; VCs can pour funding into a software company and since the marginal costs are close to zero, the innovator can blitz-scale and take over the market before the incumbent has time to react. However when "scaling" means building global logistics infrastructure, including factories for batteries and factories for cars, it's a lot harder to get the drop on the incumbents.
I think the GP's comment is spot on though, if Tesla fails to win this race, they will still have been the driving force in bringing EV adoption forward by 5-10 years (perhaps more), which is an incredible achievement.