The most important new car at the Frankfurt show. BMW i3? No. Jaguar X-C17? No. Porsche 918 Spyder? No.

The most important car was the Tesla Model S. This is a car from a company most people have never heard of, which has done what none of the major carmakers has managed. It is an all-electric vehicle without serious range issues, which competes on performance and price with hybrid offerings from Porsche, BMW, Audi and Mercedes.

However, pleasing though it looks, its styling is more stretched Mazda than premium, differentiated, cutting-edge, game-changing automotive landmark. It’s not just too conventional. The grille has a large, shiny-black-plastic element which looks cheap. And the interior materials are not good enough. One look at the BMW i3, costing close to a third of the price, tells you how a car like this should be executed.

These things can be forgiven and overcome. But the way the car was presented at Frankfurt was a brand crime. The stand was a bare, sorry affair surrounded by hall clutter and no attempt to communicate the significance of the car or the Tesla experience. The display was as underwhelming as the car’s technical prowess is astonishing. This from a company run by Elon Musk, PayPal billionaire and space pioneer as well as automotive trailblazer.

As battery technology improves, Tesla will be able to develop smaller, cheaper, battery-only electric vehicles which could take on the big players in the segments of the market which matter for volumes. But only if it realises it has a brand engineering job to do too.