Not long at all. Most car makers already make EVs (about a million are sold per year worldwide), and have been doing so for years. Most car makers also have high performance electric race cars, which they've also been doing for years.
Even university students can build electric race cars from scratch:
Student-built electric race car goes from 0-62 mph in 1.513 seconds
The technology is a cinch, the battery factories are a cinch, there's nothing at all difficult. Putting batteries in a car is 1-2 orders of magnitude less complex than profitably building 20 models of car across a global manufacturing and supply chain, involving thousands of parts JITed. Or even engineering extra performance out of an ICE engine.
Musk has made fools and casual observers think he has some lead, but he's really got nothing, and has done nothing, except be prepared to lose many billions making electric sports cars for a subsidized niche market where no one else wanted to flush billions down the toilet for no reason.
Last edited by ToothSayer; 07-08-2017 at 05:46 AM.