The Big 3 have been late, late, late to the party so many times you wonder if they’re just completely asleep.

The reality is the car business isn't that great and hasn't been for a long time. Making cars is capital intensive and low margin. Those are two things that don't go well together in a business. Henry Ford II famously said "mini-cars mean mini-profits." Detroit has never really gotten away from that mindset despite Japan eating their lunch in the 1970s. The marginal cost of making a big car instead of a small car isn't that much, but you can sell it for a lot more. So big trucks are where it's at.

The math doesn't really math for big truck EVs though. Big trucks are heavier, have more rolling resistance, need more energy to accelerate/stop, need extra energy for payload/towing capacity, etc. So to keep the range reasonable, you need a proportionally much bigger battery than a smaller truck or sedan. But the batteries are the most expensive part. And the bigger batteries add weight, which means you need even bigger batteries, which adds more cost...

...which means no one wants your F-150 Lightning.

There are a few general problems with mass EV adoption too. As we've discussed, EVs aren't very practical if you can't charge where you normally park. They make more sense if you have a second ICE car for long trips. Some people have false fears of range anxiety (I kid! I kid! Sort of). Bottom line is there are a lot of people who aren't going to buy an EV. Not for a while anyway.

That said, I think Tesla is making a mistake by giving up on the car business. Of course, they haven't quite given up on it, but they are holding off to one side like stinky bag of diapers and acting more like the Big 3 than a young upstart. There are still a lot of niches to be filled. One is the smaller/mid-size two-seat pickup. That's wide open, you can't even buy an ICE version anymore. A true entry-level mass market coupe, mini-van, etc. Instead in the last few years we've only seen the cybertruck (see commentary on the F-150) and the seven seat Model Y. They haven't even refreshed long in the tooth models like the Model 3, which was never a thing of beauty to begin with.