Totally agree. There's no way I could've afforded a Tesla when we got the Zoe, four years ago. Including the battery rental the Zoe was £225/month, with a first payment of £5,000.
I've only been able to get the Model X because I've been irresponsible with money, and because we IT folk get paid more than we're worth to society.
I don't think this is true (not the accessible part of course). Renault started to sell Zoe in 2012, Tesla Roadster was selling for 4 years at that time and Tesla Inc was releasing new model.
I don't say that Tesla single handedly pushed electric cars forward, but it draw a lot of attention to it, like Toyota Prius sparked attention to hybrid cars before that. Before 2010 electric car was treated mostly as a freaky concepts and sales were almost non-existent.