Tesla revolutionized the transportation industry. Before them, electric cars were quirky, slow and ran those massive lead acid batteries. Pretty much a hobbyist vehicle. The roadster gave us a glimpse as to what an electric car could be. When the S came out, it was a game changer. It looked like a regular car, had decent range, charged in a reasonable amount of time, had all creature comforts and ended up being a rocketship for acceleration. Tesla had his 4 musts:
1. Amazing Range - Up to that point, range for EV were dismal
2. Uncompromised Safety - As we have seen, it's been tested over and over again and it gets excellent results for safety
3. American Pedigree - Designed and built in the USA with 50% North American content. Plus, 6000 American jobs directly created.
4. Low Cost of Ownership - With the simplified Tesla, it might be expensive to buy but has demonstrated that it's cheap to maintain and charge. Plus created an infrastructure for it.
What we are living through right now is a revolution and thus the reason for all of the negative Tesla energy. People don't like change thus electric cars will never work, Tesla will go broke, autonomous cars are bad etc... This is like in the early 90's when I was in Finland and just couldn't believe all of the Finns on cell phones no matter where. Then by the late 90's, they were texting like crazy. I remember hating cell phones because there was going to be no way I was going to have a conversation with someone halfway across the world while I'm grocery shopping or standing there and texting. It was not the way things are supposed to be and very annoying. Here we are today and that was a losing battle. I could have fought it but that would have been a bad business decision.
I suggest all of you go do some traveling to some of the European countries, Japan and China. The future is coming no matter how much you hate it. They already have it and soon, it'll be here. We are lucky Tesla is here in the US and didn't start elsewhere. The US would have been left in the stone age. Tesla changed the worlds attitude about EV's and thus other manufacturers are going to perfect it. Tesla might not make it but they started a revolution. Hate it all you want but it's here to stay.