It's incredibly short-sighted to not call the Nissan leaf a serious EV, just because you happen to not be in the target market. I understand there is some frustration and venting in your post, but there is no reason for being derogatory about products that happen to not be targeted at you, or at California. California is not the center of the world, and neither are you.

What's a niche golf cart is the US is a mainstream car in France (or Japan). There's a reason why Renault's equivalent of the Nissan Leaf, called Renault Zoe, is even smaller than the Leaf: it's tailored to the French urban market.

Interestingly the German market is probably more vulnerable to Tesla than the French one (since after all this is about BMW). Tesla is after the like of BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, etc. But not the like of Renault, Peugeot, Nissan, Honda, Volkswagen, Opel, Fiat, etc. (Though of course Volkswagen owns Audi, so it's not all that simple...).

As a New-Yorker (currently, hopefully not for too long) I stand on the side: I don't even have a valid US driver license. I mean, what could I possibly do with a car in NYC?