Just like with any disruptive technology, it's important to remember that while there will be some great advantages, for the first 5-10 years at least there will also be some big drawbacks, too, which make it not suited for a majority of people (especially in the beginning), and if you don't think the positives are worth the negatives, then you're probably not one of those early adopters, and you should identify yourself as not being one.

For example, even 5 years ago I remember friends telling me that laptops will never replace a PC for them, because they are "too weak" performance wise. What do they use now 100% of the time? Laptops. I also remember how virtually everyone I talked to in the first year of the iPhone or so told me that the iPhone is an "inferior" phone because of its lack of good "good specs". The first iPhone had only 2 MP camera while mainstream ones already had 3 MP cameras, no video recording, and much smaller battery life than other "smartphones" at the time, and I think we all remember how much of a big deal the lack of MMS was made to be.

I also remember just a couple of years ago people saying how the ARM chips are just too slow and can't possibly compete with Intel in a consumer product. Now, even people on HN are saying that Tegra 4 is "too fast"/has too much performance that is not needed.

So my point is that if you're saying stuff like that about Tesla right now, you're probably not going to be one of the early adopters, but one from the early majority or late majority [1].

For the early adopters it's not going to matter that it takes hours to charge the car fully (mostly at night for them, so they won't consider it such a big issue), or 30 minutes to charge half of it. It's also not going to matter that they can't find charger for hundreds of miles at a time right now. For them it's all about "living the future now" and the potential of the technology. You know how they say that the future is already here, just not evenly distributed? Well they aren't the type of people that wait until it's "evenly distributed". They are the pioneer customers.

For early adopters it also won't matter that the car is still quite expensive right now, and doesn't have a "mainstream price". Also early adopters are not exactly known as the "pragmatic" type.

Now the early majority people, are quite the opposite (which is why the "chasm" can exist, because they have almost nothing in common in terms of how they look at technology, so an early majority guy, also known as a "pragmatist" won't use the early adopter that much for reference. They will look at the situation in a very pragmatic way. "Can I charge the car fast? Does it cost a reasonable amount of money? Can I charge it pretty much everywhere I want? How reliable is it? I don't want to be a 'beta' tester". These are the type of questions he's asking himself. You're probably in this group.

And the late majority customers or the "conservatives", are the people who will buy electric cars after they are almost dirt cheap, after almost everyone they know has one, after all the "issues" of electric cars have been fixed, and they are at least "good enough" for evertyhing they need, and from their point of view, at least as good as gas-powered cars. They won't buy them until all those criterias are met.

I think it's important to identify people like this, especially as the founder of the disruptive company, so you don't necessarily take the criticism as "maybe I'm just not doing something good here", but as a "these people are just not ready for it yet". And it's important to identify this so you don't immediately think that just because there's a lot of criticism in the beginning, it means it will fail. Of course even disruptive technologies can fail, but if they keep the early adopters happy, and keep improving it until it becomes good enough for the rest of the market, then it should be fine.

There are already chargers that charge in 5 minutes I believe, but they might be too expensive right now. It's only a matter of time before Tesla and others are using them. Tesla also promised that within 5 years they will cover the country with their free-charging (another big plus of Tesla's electric cars) superchargers (I believe every 80 miles? and they should expand them even further later on). Within 5 years the batteries should also get 50% or so more efficient, so longer range, or a cheaper price. Tesla also intends to introduce a $30,000 model in 2 years, and probably an even cheaper one 3 years later.

So they're getting there, and they are going to make their cars "good enough" for most people within 5-10 years. And I do believe they will also have a sustainable enough business and market to keep them growing until then. I think that by 2020 almost everyone in US will at least seriously consider buying an electric car. Between 2020 and 2030 electric cars should become fully mainstream and almost completely replace gas-powered cars (of course a minor part of the market will probably buy gas-powered cars even in 2040 - the laggards).

[1] http://infrae.com/presentations/present_OSSWATCH_osmodel/tec...