Of course, Nissan never bolted wheels to the sides of a Leaf and ran it down a tunnel, so they're still behind on that front

There was from the beginning a tendency to cut Elon Musk considerable slack for the bullshit because it seemed to be in the service of good causes such as space exploration, electric vehicles, and solar energy, but it was recognized as bullshit. When you got past the fanboys, serious, knowledgeable people never bought into the narrative. In emails and private conversations, they’d describe Musk as a “flake,” point out his habit of taking credit for other people’s work, remind you that most of the breakthroughs consisted of incremental improvements on decades-old tech (much of which had been liberated from TRW).

Eventually it became apparent that turning a blind eye to even seemingly benign crap can have consequences, particularly when it enables a charismatic con man with a messiah complex, but by the time the dangers became evident, the myth was too entrenched and (just as importantly) too well constructed. The lies reinforced each other. Dating back to PayPal, every accomplishment of his career had been inflated, so that now each new impossible claim was followed by a list of all the impossible things Musk has done before.

One of the key steps for the building of this myth has been equating electric vehicles with Tesla. The rise of the EV is a good thing in the short term and an inevitability in the long term (barring some big and completely unexpected breakthrough). Musk’s company made some important contributions in terms of technology and, more importantly, brand (all joking aside, opening the midlife crisis market to  EVs was a big deal)

But all too often the press treated Tesla as the EV company. Nissan (in some ways just as major a player) went largely unmentioned. Models from other companies that predated Tesla were ignored, as was ongoing work across the industry. All of this created the impression that Musk and associates had an enormous lead which helped push the stock price into the stratosphere and helped shore up the myth of the “real life Tony Stark.”

From Michael J. Coren:

    Yet Tesla’s ambitions will require more than owning the US market. Overseas, the Nissan Leaf remains the world’s most popular electric car. It has racked up 400,000 in cumulative sales, Nissan announced this March, and is on track to hit half a million next year. Since 2013, the Leaf has averaged about 50,000 in annual global sales, a number that surged to more than 85,000 in 2018.

    Unlike Tesla, Nissan has manufacturing plants around the world. Three of them, in Japan, England, and the US (Tennessee), produce the Leaf, allowing the hatchback to be modified for local markets. To keep costs low, much of the tooling and assembly lines exist in shared facilities. That’s kept the Leaf’s price at $29,990 for a standard 2019 model, and as low as $11,000 for a used model from 2015.

    While Tesla flaunts its style, Nissan owes its success to those low prices and functionality. The dynamic playing out in the global EV market resembles the war over smartphones. Apple has grabbed the high-end of the market with powerful, high-priced iPhones running its iOS operating system, while Google’s Android owns most of the rest. There’s a stark domestic and international split in market share. In the US, Apple has about 40% of US mobile operating systems. Overseas, Android commands 76% thanks to its functional, low-cost appeal (eclipsing Apple’s 22% share).

Of course, being the Apple of EVs would normally be a good thing, but when expectations are this high, any reasonable outcome is a letdown.