If it wasn't obvious yet it should be now, EVs are here to stay and will overtake the entire auto industry.

In a mere 6 minutes and 45.90 seconds, NIO broke the famed Nürburgring test track single lap record. Leaving in its dust Lamborghini, Porche, Nissan, Mercedes, Dodge, and every other auto manufacturer to ever test a supercar on the track. It shouldn't come as any surprise that EVs are smashing every auto record, after all, Tesla's been doing it for years. However, this wasn't Tesla and that's why this is such a huge milestone.

Strong Industries Thrive on Rivalries

Every great industry is typically built around a strong rivalry. Coca-Cola needs Pepsi, CBS needs NBC, Walmart needs Target and just like when the Dodge brothers left Ford to start their own competing auto company Tesla needs someone who can rival their technology going forward. Will it eventually be NIO? At this point, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the industry is obviously moving quickly towards electric vehicles, and fairly soon Tesla will have more competition than it knows what to do with.

Tesla needs someone who can rival their technology going forward

What makes NIO a strong competitor is that they have a completely different way of attacking how electric vehicles should be developed and eventually produced. NIO started testing and refining their technology in Formula E the three-year-old all-EV racing series and are now slowly transferring those lessons learned on the track to the open road. Tesla, on the other hand, didn't have the luxury of an EV racing league but rather had to create the EV industry on their own. Slow laying the foundations of what NIO and many other electric vehicle startups are building upon.

The reason this is significant is Tesla needs a competitor that can not only push them for market supremacy but also technologically. Forcing both companies to change and react to new advances in the industry benefits both organizations and consumers alike. Rapidly driving costs down and advancing EV technology making EVs fun, safe, and affordable for everyone.

Technology Always Wins

For EV enthusiasts its been a long time coming. It's no secret that the EV industry was once seen as a complete pipe dream. Even now there are many naysayers of the emerging market arguing that there are simply too many technological and infrastructural hurdles to overcome before EVs can be a viable mode of transportation. Unfortunately for those same people, the Nürburgring leaderboard now shows just how wrong they were.

Companies who fail to change will gradually disappear

The lesson here is that betting aginst technology is never the good play. In fact, the smart money is on when internal combustion engines will disappear for good not when EVs will become viable. Simply put technology always wins out in the end and there is very little that anyone can do to stop it and those companies who fail to change will gradually disappear.

The NIO test track time merely proves that EVs are at the center of our automotive future. They can be built lighter, faster, and safer than anything traditional auto companies can release and it's only a matter of time before they can be built cheaper too. Once that happens EVs will take over whatever is left of the internal combustion market and with the upcoming release of the Model 3 that day is getting here much faster than anticipated.

Most of the world's largest automakers have pegged 2020 as the year they will start introducing their so-called "Tesla-killers", but by then they may already be too far behind to ever catch back up.