Have you forgotten about the Nissan Leaf? Tesla created the market for expensive sports car EVs, but Nissan made the market for EVs for the mainstream.

The Tesla Roadster came out first, by a couple years, but only sold about 2500 over its lifetime. By the time Tesla got its second model out, a couple years after Leaf went on sale, Leaf had 50k sales.

It took until 2020 for Tesla cumulative sales to catch up with Leaf cumulative sales.

The first generation Leaf belongs more to the early curiosity phase of EVs than the mainstream. Funny looking, less than 100 miles range, and slow charging via a port that never caught on outside of Japan. Tesla didn't just build a car that addressed the biggest EV objections (range, charging speed, looks), they also built a DCFC network that has more ports than all of the other ones combined. Without the charging network there is no EV market.