Tesla forced the entire industry to accelerate to EV. Toyota could have been that pioneer and mover.
Earlier this year Tesla adjusted their mission to push for “a world of amazing abundance” based on renewable energy, autonomous driving, robotics, and AI.
Even today Ford’s CEO talks about Chinese cars when discussing what they’re worried about, not Tesla.
And then there’s also the battery cost revolution which is again being driven by Chinese companies, whereas Tesla’s in house design has largely failed.
China supplied the batteries, sure.
But there's definitely a pre-Tesla and post-Tesla world regarding the vehicles themselves. Tesla changed the image of EVs available to the general public by making performant and low maintenance vehicles that looked futuristic and were capable of things basically only supercars could, for a fraction of the price. And they built the DC charging infrastructure all over the world to support long-range trips, which was non-existent before Tesla. EVs before Teslas were basically niche experiments.