For Toyota, it wasn't the engineering, design, nor the manufacturing that was the bottleneck. It was sourcing of the batteries. Toyota sold 100k Priuses it's f

For Toyota, it wasn't the engineering, design, nor the manufacturing that was the bottleneck. It was sourcing of the batteries. Toyota sold 100k Priuses it's first year (2005), and peaked at 237k Priuses in 2012. At that time, nobody had the capacity (nor the materials), to produce that many battery packs for full EV use. In hind sight, they could have committed fully to LiIon batteries for the future, but in early 2000s, it wasn't clear at all what technology would actually win. The contenders were, as I recall, hydrogen, rechargeable batteries, and bio-fuels. Toyota had concept vehicles for each of those, and the hybrid-electric was the practical compromise at the time. Toyota, being a large scale manufacturer, could not design a car around a critical component which were in short supply, like LiIon batteries. Tesla decided to go the rechargeable route, invested heavily in battery manufacturing, and bet on LiIon analog of Moore's Law. Since they weren't going to sell 100k vehicles any time soon, they could scale along the way. Tesla didn't deliver 200k vehicles until 2018. (On a side note, Tesla also had Elon leading it. All of his 'crazy ventures' lead to colonizing Mars. What kind of a vehicle would be most practical on Mars? Not gasoline. Not hydrogen. Yep, EV. And what internet technology is the most practical on Mars? Yep, satellite constellations. What transport technology is the most practical on Mars? Underground tunnels. And so on.) Currently, all the automakers except Tesla are scrambling to secure battery capacity. Tesla is in a very nice position right now.