Toyota offered an electric version of its RAV4, an extremely popular crossover SUV, a decade before the Tesla roadster came out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV. But in 1997, gas was cheap and the government wasn't subsidizing EVs to the tune of $7,500-$10,000.
It's hard to say what would've happened in a hypothetical timeline. But Tesla didn't invent the underlying technology, the traditional car makers were already working on it. Tesla wasn't responsible for EV subsidies in 2008, it was a combination of exploding gas prices, middle east instability, the Iraq war, and Obama getting elected. Good chance that the EV market would've taken exactly the same course without Tesla.
I honestly don't remember anyone saying Musk/Tesla invented electric car, this is quite obviously a point argued by zero people.
Sure there was that Toyota with NiMH batteries. How many of them were sold for enirety of its production run.. 2000? 4000? With Toyota resources and vast marketing force?
My friend had a 1990 VW Golf electric smallseries with lead batteries. It was also fun to ride.. as an experience. Like a hot air balloon ride. But not a very practical everyday car. It was also so obscure it has no own Wikipedia page.
Tesla took the EV business from the dumpster and made it mainstream.
But Tesla didn't make electric cars mainstream either at least not alone. The Roadster was not mainstream, selling 2,500 units. More than the ~1,000 EV1 or 1,500 RAV4 EV, but in the same ballpark.
To the extent that any electric cars are mainstream (and I would ague they are not--Toyota sells more RAV4s each year than all the cars Tesla has ever sold in its history), several mainstream models were released around the same time. The Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf came out in 2010, and the Model S in 2012. The Volt and Model S have sold a similar number of units, with the Leaf selling about double that.
A RAV4 would not (did not) capture the public imagination like the Tesla Roadster did. Like it or not, marketing was a huge part of the EV success. And Tesla did that marketing, not the other car companies, which seem culturally incapable of celebrating an EV's performance or coolness.
If marketing EVs as "cool" was "a huge part of the EV success," you'd see other car manufacturers trying to ride that wave by engaging in similar marketing efforts. But you see the opposite. Nissan, Toyota, Chevy, BMW, are all mainly focused on "cute and practical."
People here in suburban Maryland don't give a shit about high performance, "cool," cars. But they love RAV4s, and Nissan Rogues, and Honda CR-Vs. Each of those models sells more units every year than Tesla has sold in its entire history.
...because its not so nerdy to own one, now. Because of marketing.
And of course old ICE designers are incapable of marketing their EVs as anything but cute. That's why they never could have made this market what it is, on their own?
That's some crazy grasping at straws. It is ridiculous to say that Tesla marketing high-performance sports sedans somehow paved the way for cars like the Nissan Leaf, which are cute little EVs that look like EVs. It is even more ridiculous to say that Tesla somehow made the EV market "what it is" by marketing high-performance sports sedans, when the majority of the cars in the market are cute little EVs like the Leaf.
People don't give a shit about sports sedans. The Prius proved there was a market for a cute little car that was environmentally friendly, and that's what's driving most of the EV market right now. When someone releases a sub-$30k cross-over SUV (you know, the cars people actually buy), then you'll see EV sales really take off.
It's hard to say what would've happened in a hypothetical timeline. But Tesla didn't invent the underlying technology, the traditional car makers were already working on it. Tesla wasn't responsible for EV subsidies in 2008, it was a combination of exploding gas prices, middle east instability, the Iraq war, and Obama getting elected. Good chance that the EV market would've taken exactly the same course without Tesla.