They've been "serious" for a long time. Chevy has been selling the Volt since 2010. If they were going to muscle out Tesla they would have done it by now. And it's not just about technology. Tesla has the customer reputation that companies like GM will never have again.
GM is investing in what sells, and right now (i.e. for the last decade or two), that's SUVs and light trucks. Which doesn't bode well for Tesla, at least in the near term.
You can certainly argue that fuel prices are going to go up and make electric cars popular. The question is: does it happen before Tesla goes broke?
(Edit: downvoting doesn't change facts. From GM's own 2017 outlook [1]: "Ten all-new or recently redesigned crossovers are expected to drive GM’s sales and share higher in 2017, including the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain, which will compete in the industry’s largest segment." And they're not joking about that last part. As of February 2017, SUVs and Trucks dominate the list of most-popular vehicles sold in the USA [2].)
[1] https://www.gm.com/investors/sales/us-sales-production.html
[2] https://www.cars.com/articles/top-10-best-selling-cars-febru...
The platform looks amazing. It boggles my mind in all the years this vehicle has existed that they haven't made more vehicles based on it.
Go figure. It's not like I can't afford the monthly payments.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-greatest-auto-lease-dea...
Disclaimer: I'm long TSLA and Solar City Solar Bonds.
As it turns out, it's already discontinued?
Tesla is more like a luxury brand so its biggest potential competitors will be the big 3 in Germany and possibly Lexus (which all have a pretty good reputation), and currently none of them propose that many options.
Audi and Lexus have none. BMW has two, but only one of them can sort of compete with Tesla (can't go far with the i5 battery). Mercedes only has one (if I'm not mistaken). It really feels like they're only getting started, and if/when they start releasing really compelling models, it will be something more to deal with for Tesla.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/german-governme...
In short, German carmakers' historical expertise in designing good internal combustion engines are worthless if electric cars take over. The auto industry is ripe for some serious disruption.
Tesla has opened up a slice of the market the traditional maker didn't expect would work: primary car. This has a feel of Apple with iPhone in 2007.
Even if Tesla ramp up tremendously and try getting in every car segment simultaneously, they will not have the capacity to provide all the cars that people are looking for, so the rest of the companies will likely continue to provide the bulk of the car market. Which is not a negative for Tesla, the market is simply enormous: it would take Tesla to produce over 2 million cars per quarter to even get over the single digit market share.
The biggest risk now for Tesla is not being able to reach critical mass fast enough. I can understand their valuation and their need for cash. I can understand the shorters too, unlike the smartphone market, car purchase has at least a 4 years cycle and even in the first world, a car purchase is one of the biggest investment.
