Tesla offered access to their supercharging network, as well. Predictably, the traditional auto makers wanted nothing to do with it, not even as a stop-gap, and instead had committees design inferior plugs for a minuscule and fragmented charging network that reliably fails to charge any vehicle.

Tesla is distinctly not part of the traditional auto industry. Tesla management insight into engineering and the marketplace is a fundamental differentiating factor.

Let’s say you’re a traditional upmarket car maker with a reputation for engineering excellence, and you want to computerize your dashboard. What’s your approach? I can tell you exactly what you’d do, because I’ve seen it: license windows CE and break your requirements down into team-sized chunks. Each team makes its own windows CE device. The devices are all supposed to talk to each other, but the teams implementing them don’t need to talk to each other, because they have formal specs for their components. Shockingly, when all the systems are assembled together, doors lock and unlock randomly, headlights are unreliable, and it’s common knowledge that you better not roll down a window, because you may need to go to the dealer to raise it. So, you try and fail to improve for the next model year. This continues for a decade before you even consider a different approach.