With some products it takes a while for the penny to drop, you mention Google, think of Street View and how there was that moment when this nice idea led to something bigger - Google owning maps with all their own cartography not copied from any other agencies. They got copyright on maps by doing them better. The task they undertook was something that most companies would petition their government to do, not do it themselves. There was a cash burn on driving those cars around too, plus privacy battles.
I know that 'anyone can make an electric car' (they did on Top Gear), however Tesla have worked with the toolmakers and component suppliers to build a factory to make cars, this is the main creation, the factory not the car.
Whilst older petrol hears have been sneering about range anxiety, something wonderful has happened to what is going to happen with the energy market and these electric cars. Soon you will be able to get a plug in the lamppost by your door fitted by your electricity company, this will be a bit like getting a satellite dish installed, except the lamppost will work for three cars. Then you get the option to buy cheap electricity from the windfarms when it is windy and sell it back to the grid at peak demand time, earning someone a profit. You won't need to go to garages and those extra long journeys would work out fine too - superchargers are there for that.
This fit - domestic energy demand, variable supply renewables and cars that have large batteries for range reasons - is all coming together nicely.
Tesla could make a 2CV grade electric car if they get the manufacturing sussed. In this situation the ICE dinosaurs just can't change quick enough and it becomes Nokia/iPhone again. This probably summarises it for me, what Tesla are doing is that revolutionary a change, much like what Apple did.