I don’t really agree with the idea that Tesla’s are so far ahead of everyone else. Having just road in a model 3, so much of it felt really cheap. From the way you need two hands effectively to open the door from the outside, the flimsy plastic compartment in the center console that you have to “gently” close otherwise it bounces open, watching the autonomous car visualization merge and split apart cars that in reality hadn’t changed lane positions (deeply worrying), to the single point of failure touch screen eliminating any other part (for cost savings), I don’t see what the big deal is (except for their range/price, which is far better than everyone else). I hear the model S and X are better, but at their price point there are many other really nice options as well.
For reasons not clear to me, "ride in" just doesn't work as well as "drive every day for a while". From the latter point of view: one hand is plenty for the doors, the plastic thing in the middle irritates you the first dozen times then it's fine, and the single screen is a large win. The screen doesn't "test drive" well, but for daily use many find it highly preferable.
Still, to get more wide adoption they should fix the irritations for the next iteration. There is no reason for either electricity or self driving to imply doors that are tricky to open or a strange center console closure. Fixing those distractions would make it easier to sell more.
Just as an anecdotal counterpoint, I drove one for a week and my opinion of it didn't change. It continued to feel cheap to the point where I thought I would break things, the center screen did not become nice to use in comparison to the Model S split screen/gauges setup, the door handles were continuously annoying, and also the seat was never comfortable regardless of how much time I spent adjusting it (why the hell didn't they buy them from Recaro instead of building them in-house??). It does drive well in terms of general performance, responsiveness, and handling in comparison to other cars in the price class, though.
I get the impression that the actual Tesla advantage is more in the propulsion and power systems.
The rest of the car is garbage, and areas where the established incumbents should naturally be superior.
But the good news for Tesla is they should be able to improve the build quality and general car/manufacturing stuff relatively quickly now that the important differentiating foundation bits have been done spectacularly, if they can just survive long enough to iterate.
