When people pull out their phones to take a picture of a car parked on the street, it's usually a sports car they're interested in. But Americans don't have time for vehicles so close to the ground. Instead they favour stronger, louder – albeit, far less elegant – trucks; from pick-ups to SUVs.

Tesla Motors has taken the electric car market by storm, and its Model X will be the world’s first all-electric sport utility vehicle (SUV) to enter into mass production. But it won’t be the last; Audi is gearing up to challenge Tesla in the all-electric SUV marketplace.

Tesla didn’t set out just to challenge the automotive sector – it wants to change it. It ranks in the top five brands among motor enthusiasts, and celebrity fans of Tesla include Jay-Z, Ben Affleck and Jay Leno. But how has an electric car company become a cool cult brand?

Where once buying a car meant travelling to a dealership and speaking directly with forecourt dwellers, this is changing. It is estimated that at least 2,800 dealerships could disappear in the US alone by 2020. So in 2014, how exactly are people going about purchasing a new set of wheels?