I mean Netflix and Apple both face extremely fierce competition, just not from those actual companies you mentioned. Replace Nokia with Samsung and Blockbuster

I mean Netflix and Apple both face extremely fierce competition, just not from those actual companies you mentioned. Replace Nokia with Samsung and Blockbuster with Amazon and Comcast (Hulu) and you'd make a little more sense. Making cars efficiently is hard and Tesla is great at powertrain and batteries, two important but specific parts of the process, and awful at the rest. The German companies are incredible at everything else, including reliability and efficiency. Sure maybe they'll just never be able to catch up in making (or sourcing) batteries and electric motors. Wouldn't bet on it though.