What percent of car owners drive Teslas? There are ~300 million vehicles on the roads in the US. Pre chip shortage, ~17 million new cars sold each year. Of those, electric vehicles are what, 2% of the new car market and ~0.6% of the total market (used car market is twice as large as the new car market)? That is not "the vast majority of people".
Where I live I see FJ cruisers, Porsches, and Bentleys every day, but I understand that my area is not typical. It's a wealthy area in which offroading is very popular. I also see Teslas and BMWs (more Mercedes than BMW and more BMW than Tesla).
I also understand that those cars tend to be more memorable, so it's foolish to pretend that FJ Cruisers, Porsches, or Bentleys are suitable for the vast majority of the public just because they seem suitable for many people in my area. In the same way, perhaps you should recalibrate your expectations as well when extrapolating based on what you see in your area.
Now what prevents a Porsche or Bentley from being suitable is that these are for niche performance or price insensitive markets. But what prevents something like the Tesla from being suitable is the charging network and repairability uncertainty. With a Bentley, you know you will pay through the nose for repairs which is why Bentleys depreciate so massively. But with Toyotas you know their reputation for durability, which is why used FJ Cruisers cost more than used Bentleys. But how much should a used Tesla go for? I honestly don't know -- and neither does anyone else right now. Unless you have a lot of money to play around with, that's too much of a risk. You don't spend 15-20% of your household net worth on something that you can't price.
I think you’re massively overthinking things. Most people look at the Model 3, see it costs the same as a Toyota Camry, want to help the environment and have Spotify in their car, skip the dealership, go to tesla.com, see dirt cheap financing available, and make the purchase. If they don’t it’s because they’re not comfortable giving up their gas car yet because that’s what they know. Not because they can’t “price it”. Further in the current market Teslas depreciate noticeably less than ICE vehicles because they don’t need maintenance.
You may not be able to price a Tesla, and that’s fine, but don’t get some impression that just because you can’t that other’s cant and moreover that it’s the sole factor contributing to why they allegedly don’t buy. Where I live nobody is “pricing” their $65k Truck, they just want a big fucking truck 30% of their household net worth be damned! You’re full of FUD.
Lastly looking at overall population numbers is kinda silly. We’re not going to wake up and everyone has replaced their perfectly fine car with a tesla. If you look at market share growth Tesla shot up in 2017 with the Model 3. And it wasn’t just a balloon, their growth has continued. They sold 500k cars last year, a little less than half of their previous total up to that year. Again: people are buying Tesla and more people by percentage are buying every year. A Tesla was a rarity 5 years ago but that’s no longer the case. The fact that we can observe this with only 1.5MM Teslas on the road is pretty cool.
Where I live I see FJ cruisers, Porsches, and Bentleys every day, but I understand that my area is not typical. It's a wealthy area in which offroading is very popular. I also see Teslas and BMWs (more Mercedes than BMW and more BMW than Tesla).
I also understand that those cars tend to be more memorable, so it's foolish to pretend that FJ Cruisers, Porsches, or Bentleys are suitable for the vast majority of the public just because they seem suitable for many people in my area. In the same way, perhaps you should recalibrate your expectations as well when extrapolating based on what you see in your area.
Now what prevents a Porsche or Bentley from being suitable is that these are for niche performance or price insensitive markets. But what prevents something like the Tesla from being suitable is the charging network and repairability uncertainty. With a Bentley, you know you will pay through the nose for repairs which is why Bentleys depreciate so massively. But with Toyotas you know their reputation for durability, which is why used FJ Cruisers cost more than used Bentleys. But how much should a used Tesla go for? I honestly don't know -- and neither does anyone else right now. Unless you have a lot of money to play around with, that's too much of a risk. You don't spend 15-20% of your household net worth on something that you can't price.