It can be sheer performance; going by the innovator's dilemma, in general it is whatever attributes are higher-ranked by the market (ie. customers). This makes

It can be sheer performance; going by the innovator's dilemma, in general it is whatever attributes are higher-ranked by the market (ie. customers). This makes sense, because that is what incumbents naturally worry about, and what they compete on. So if your startup is worse on those attributes, you don't threaten them, and they leave you alone. So what's the point of your startup, if you're worse for customers? You're better for other people, who aren't customers of the incumbents, and who rank the attributes differently. There's lots of examples. The coup de grâce is when both you and the incumbent improve over time, but the incumbent becomes better than it needs to be for its existing customers on those attributes, and your startup becomes good enough, but you also have those other attributes - then the incumbent's existing customers switch to you, and incumbent dies. It doesn't always go that way, but it does happen, and that's the pattern studied in the innovator's dilemma. Incidentally, electric vehicles were popular at the dawn of the car; even edison was developing batteries for them. They've been overtaking the petrol car for a long time. But they have made inroads in other markets, such as those disability wheelchair carts (I'm not sure exactly why they're a better fit for electric, but they are certainly not a focus of incumbent car manufacturers - and maybe that's the important thing). sorry, I can't help explaining this whenever it comes up, whether it's needed or not. It's such a cool observation.