> They are the ones that made the tech good enough for mainstream adoption.
So, this is a common idea, but it doesn't _really_ gel with reality. The Tesla S, Nissan Leaf, VW's first electric car platform, and the Renault Z-E platform are contemporaries to within about a year (iirc it was Leaf, then an unsuccessful Z-E-based car, then eGolf in limited quantity, then S, then mass-market eGolf and Renault Zoe). Of these, the Leaf sold far more units than the S over its lifetime; the Zoe was about the same as the S, the eGolf somewhat less.
Tesla didn't have a _true_ mass-market car until the Model 3 some years later.
Your chronology is screwed up, we didn’t hit mass market until the model 3.
The litmus test is what cars you see on the roads of Wyoming. There are plenty of model 3s, and a leaf was an extremely rare site because the car was nearly useless outside of a city commute.
> The litmus test is what cars you see on the roads of Wyoming.
Given that US adoption of electric cars lagged other developed world countries, and thus early electric cars were generally designed for European, Chinese, and to some extent Japanese, market preferences, that seems like an extremely weird litmus test. Tesla _was_ the first company to release a mass-market car aimed at the _US_ market (or at least the first credible attempt; the Leaf was available in the US but was just too far from US market preferences), but the Chinese and European markets already had mass-market electric cars.
So, this is a common idea, but it doesn't _really_ gel with reality. The Tesla S, Nissan Leaf, VW's first electric car platform, and the Renault Z-E platform are contemporaries to within about a year (iirc it was Leaf, then an unsuccessful Z-E-based car, then eGolf in limited quantity, then S, then mass-market eGolf and Renault Zoe). Of these, the Leaf sold far more units than the S over its lifetime; the Zoe was about the same as the S, the eGolf somewhat less.
Tesla didn't have a _true_ mass-market car until the Model 3 some years later.