PERHAPS THE BIGGEST threat now facing Tesla isn’t its ability to scale up Model 3 production, or nail down autonomous driving software; it might actually be that the mainstream auto industry is finally entering the market Elon Musk’s upstart car company has long dominated.
For five years, Tesla’s Model S has monopolized the luxury electric sedan market, but that dominance is now besieged. Porsche is spending more than a billion dollars to develop the the Mission E, a svelte speedster it plans to launch in 2020. Audi’s planning an onslaught of new EVs over the next three years, including the A9 e-tron, which will become the automaker’s new flagship.