I cannot imagine the product teams that designed the Audi e-tron or the Mercedes EQC having sat down and said, "Let's build a car to compete with Tesla." What t

I cannot imagine the product teams that designed the Audi e-tron or the Mercedes EQC having sat down and said, "Let's build a car to compete with Tesla." What they created did not attempt to meet Tesla's strengths. Tesla understands that the thing that new EV owners really want is to feel secure (read: range and chargers so they're not stranded) and to have their newfangled electric cars feel "futuristic" (read: spartan interior, big touchscreen, autopilot, OTA software updates). Audi, Jaguar, Mercedes, et. al think that new EV owners want the same driving experience they had in their gas cars, only with an electric drivetrain. So they made their cars heavier in their pursuit of making the cars quiet, which they accomplished quite well. They preserved much of the body styling at the expense of drag because they assumed customers would want that brand identity. They targeted the "non power users," in that they held back a significant chunk of the battery from the consumer (~20% for the e-tron) so that consumers in hot climates couldn't wreck the battery by habitually charging all the way to 100% and letting the pack sit like that, which destroys lithium ion battery chemistry. Tesla on the other hand spent their complexity budget for the Model 3 on extracting as much range as possible with as little expense as they could. As a result, the car is significantly lighter, and anyone who owns a Model 3 can attest to the fact that there's a lot of road noise. This is immediately solvable with heavier materials, but Tesla understands that the first batch of Model 3 owners strongly prefer the range over the creature comfort. And that the first batch of Model 3 owners are less likely to wreck their battery packs by habitually letting them sit overcharged for long periods of time. So they can expose the full battery packs to the consumer and get that 20% range boost over competitors who hold that back from the consumer. 2020/2021 is starting to get interesting with the Ford Mach E, the Volvo Polestar 2, the LEAF Plus, the second-year Hyundai Kona Electric and Kia Niro Electric, and the updated Bolt, together with the very rapidly expanding Electrify America rapid charging network. Tesla will continue to optimize for range and will likely keep a "stats lead" on the competition, but as range anxiety starts to be alleviated the second generation of EV converts may shift their demands away from range and toward other characteristics of the vehicle such as the interior and road noise isolation. It will be interesting to see where that goes.