I like the parallel with Apple and their iPhone, as described by jhs_7645. I, too, was thinking the same thing back then, until I tried the iPhone. Apart from one Ericsson, I exclusively had Nokia phones from 1993 to 2009. Then I jumped on the iPhone 3, then 3Gs, skipped the 4, went on to 5 then 5S, skipping the 6 as well.
Sure the iPhone was simple, but it was so easy to use. And then it dawned on me: Just before I switched to iPhone, I had the latest, craziest HTC. 4G, WiFI, infrared, GPS, full keyboard (physical), camera and much more. It could do skype, navigation and much more. Well, in theory it could. In reality, nothing really worked well. Skype would overheat the phone in a few minutes, and there was no video calls, only normal calls or texting. Calendar sync was a nightmare, so was connecting to any WiFi or roaming phone network. I ended up only using that phone for solitaire, calling and SMS! So the revelation was: Better have a smaller set of features that work well in reality, rather than a huge list of options where most of them are unfinished, not working together and cumbersome to use.
To extend that parallel - it's no secret that Tesla Motors are borrowing certain philosophies from Apple, or even Steve Jobs. Less is more. It doesn't take much effort to beat up something complicated, but it takes an almost endless amount of investment to make something that works well, and is easy to use. I am convinced that that Elon Musk is a great fan of the (late) Mr Jobs. And compare Apple to Microsoft: Looking back, Microsoft kept promising and promising. Delivering things that worked in theory, the specs looked nice on paper. After multiple delays, and it finally released, it was never as good as promised, and an endless amount of service packs tried to patch up the faulty code. Service patch, maybe? Apple didn't promise, they surprised. After any of the renowned Apple Events, the products were ready to deliver shortly after.
So here we are: Tesla Motors actually have a product that is working well, and well received. User friendly, awesome performance, and a network to go with it. Still much can be improved, yet it's a step up like going from horse carriages to the Ford Model T. Sure there are promises: Model X is coming (but delayed), Model III is coming, and so far into the future we don't even know yet if delayed or not.