People here keep saying Tesla cars were absolutely nothing new, do you even remember or know how EVs were designed before Tesla stepped up to the plate? Horrible, ugly, weak and slow little cars with poor range (sound like a familiar description of EVs?). They were cars that all but a select few would want for environmental reasons let alone practical reasons. EVs were B team projects done as throw away efforts to satisfy political/government pressure: see the EVs from legacy auto that came out in the 90s as a response to the
California Air Resources Board's Zero-Emissions Vehicle Program starting 1990 (CARB ZEV). Most people probably don't even know the names of the battery electric vehicles which came out before Tesla hit the market. Look at battery electric vehicle (BEV) release dates:
Lead acid and Nickel Battery EVs:CitiCar 1974Sinclair C5
1985Kewet Model 1
1991Chrysler TEVan
1993*
GM EV1
1996*
Chevrolet S-10 Electric
1997*
Honda EV Plus
1997*
Toyota RAV4 EV
1997*
Ford Ranger EV
1998*
Global Electric Motorcars (neighbourhood EV)
1998Lithium Ion BEVs:Nissan Altra EV (
first lithium ion production BEV, only ~200 made)
1998*
BYD F3DM, actually plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) but the first first mass produced PHEV
2008Tesla Roadster 2008 (began dev in 2004)Mitsubishi i-MiEV
2009Nissan Leaf
2010Chevrolet Volt
2011Tesla Model S 2012Renault Zoe
2012BMW i3
2013Kia Soul EV
2014Tesla Model X
2015Tesla Model 3 2016Hyundai Ioniq Electric
2016Nissan Leaf 2nd Gen
2017*CARB ZEVsMost of those CARB ZEVs were in production until the early 2000s when
the CARB lost steam with a big pull pack in 1998 probably due to the shitty ZEVs legacy car makers came out with (and arguably sabotage of EVs that were popular). Come 2012 though, no doubt with the support of somewhat less shitty BEVs from Japanese makers and the popularity of Tesla, the ZEV program got a kick in the balls. No doubt parallels happened across the world in different markets/regulatory environments.
Articles about the CARB ZEV program:
Virginia McConnell, Benjamin Leard, and Fred Kardos "California’s Evolving Zero Emission Vehicle Program: Pulling New Technology into the Market", Resources for the Future, 2019,
https://media.rff.org/documents/RFF_WP_Californias_Evolving_Zero_Emission_Vehicle_Program.pdf Virginia McConnell and Benjamin Leard "The California ZEV Program: A Long and Bumpy Road, but Finally Some Success", Resources for the Future, 2019,
https://www.resources.org/common-resources/california-zev-program-long-and-bumpy-road-finally-some-success/ (includes summary/review of the above RFF paper)
Edit: Also for a view of EVs in the pre-Tesla/Leaf and some CARB ZEV history (centred on GM EV1) see
Who Killed The Electric Car? (2006), For people with Amazon Prime:
https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0I9X71SI8UD8E3ZSA2ZFMXEYHK/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r and a cut down summary on youtube
https://youtu.be/l3OnYjP4FTkLook at this list of BEVs
https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/blog/influential-evs-an-illustrated-history-of-electric-car-design.html and look at the spec and power of the EVs released at the same time as the Tesla vehicles. Tesla is successful as an EV maker because they had the vision and drive to make decent EVs that people actually want to drive and own against a great many challenges. Not toys or throwaway emissions regulation projects like other car makers.
So far as Telsa having zero innovative tech, have you never heard of the mega castings? have you seen/analysed the radically different battery pack construction and architecture? the tab-less battery design (not yet delivered)? not to mention the more controversial autonomous driving?
What kind of revisionist is "Tesla never did anything different"Edit: To be clear, there was a lot of good work and products done by other mostly Asian car makers but particularly for the US market and regulation/politics in the US, Tesla has made a massive impact. Which is probably why there's so much marketing (propaganda) against Tesla.