Tesla could end up like Ford: losing its pole position as dull corporate rivals race ahead

US stock market outperformance relies on the “Magnificent 7”: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google, Android), Meta, Nvidia and Tesla. Over the last decade, these stocks typically returned at least 500%. Without them, stock market rises would have been less than 2% a year after inflation.

- Tim Leunig

Pretty much everyone has an Apple or an Android phone. A new firm would struggle to break into that duopoly. Nokia, Blackberry: they came and went. Apple and Alphabet would have to really mess up to be in trouble. Walmart will do its best to cut Amazon down to size, but economies of scale in online retail and delivery are real.

But Tesla is vulnerable. Not because some people hate Musk for supporting Trump or because others hate him for attacking Trump. But because lots of good, rival electric cars mean Tesla has no market power. In 2013, Autocar magazine described the Tesla Model S as "a triumph", its 300-mile range about three times that of any other electric car available. Add in the supercharger network - then exclusively restricted to Tesla - and Teslas were the only EV that worked like a normal car. That gave the firm market power.