And yet a low volume brand like Jaguar can produce a competitive electric car. What's going to happen when Mercedes releases multiple electric models? As the article says, in 2017 Mercedes sold 2.3 million cars. Tesla sold 101,000.

> they have finally woken up

It's less about them waking up and more about it finally being worth their time. They operate at a larger scale than Tesla, they have existing product lines, and why stop making what continues to sell?

A bigger motivation for them is that multiple countries have announced future bans on non-electric vehicles. They need to produce electrics to keep selling cars.

> across a vast range of business history giving a multiple year lead can easily be fatal to incumbents

I don't think so in this case. The incumbents have second mover advantage. Tesla has grown the early market for electric cars, they've set a benchmark, and they're now going to get out-produced by the larger manufacturers.

When everyone's selling electric cars, why am I buying a Tesla?