Why are legacy car manufacturers so slow to respond to Tesla?

Electric car barriers for traditional manufacturers are internal

The Tesla Model S has been in production since 2012. It’s now 2018 and we are only just seeing the first announcements of apparently competitive products from legacy manufacturers.

Jaguar is first out of the gate with its I-Pace SUV actually delivering units in the second half of 2018. Porsche’s Taycan sports car is expected to arrive in 2019. The Audi e-tron SUV is expected in 2019 as well, as is the Mercedes EQC. The Volkswagen I.D. Crozz crossover and I.D. compact hatchback are expected in 2020, as is BMW’s iX3 SUV. Aston Martin is promising to deliver a limited production run of 155 of it’s RapidE luxury sedan in 2019, so is not really coming to market so much as glancing at the market in a bar. Some of those dates will undoubtedly slip.

That’s six to eight years to come to market with anything somewhat comparable to what Tesla delivered in 2012 and again with the Model X in 2015 and the Model 3 in 2018. It’s yet to be seen if the legacy manufacturers will be able to compete with Tesla, which is racking up market share after market share win. The August scorecard had them selling more cars (not trucks) than any of Acura, Audi, BMW Car, Infiniti, Jaguar, Lexus Car and Mercedes in…