That said, the company's positioning is unique -- while that creates risk of market confusion it also creates opportunity if Tesla finds itself tapping into previously untapped demand. So far, that seems to be the issue -- the main constraint on Tesla is not demand, but supply (Waters, 2015)
Surveys have revealed that acceptance of electric vehicles is not universal, but is stronger among women and the aged, and those with a high level of environmental conscious. Men perceive their knowledge of the issues surrounding electric cars to be high, while there is actually no evidence to back that up, and men score lowest on acceptance of electric vehicles (Ziefle et al
6% of the global electric vehicle market and thus an infinitesimal share of the global automobile market (MSN Moneycentral, 2015). It is worth noting that 55% of the electric vehicle market today is in the form of hybrids (Perkowski, 2014), whereas Tesla is a pure electric vehicle
In some cases, competitor products are also eligible for these rebates, but for gasoline-powered vehicles they are not. There is also the question of support with respect to building out superchargers and other charging infrastructure -- in China for example there was the question of government support for building out this critical infrastructure (Voelcker, 2015)
Add in the electric angle, and the challenge of leapfrogging Tesla's technology, and the barriers to entry are very high. Only existing automakers can even hope to enter this market, or companies like Apple that have tens of billions to burn (Wakabayashi, 2015)
Tesla makes luxury vehicles in the electric market, but is planning a move into the more mainstream market. Tesla is challenged in terms of its cash flow, in particular as needed to scale up production to enter the mainstream market, so there might be opportunity for a larger automaker to buy them out (Schaal, 2016) The annual report for General Motors contains both financial and non-financial information