The surprise leadership shuffle on Thursday at Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), renewed urgency at Renault (RENA.PA) and Nissan Motor Co (7201.T) to restructure their alliance and Elon Musk’s declaration that Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) will be the world’s No. 1 automaker by a wide margin have one thing in common: What once defined the global auto industry’s center is no longer holding.

The announcement that Akio Toyoda will step down as chief executive of the world’s top-selling automaker on April 1 came just hours after Musk used a quarterly earnings call to declare that Tesla was now the auto industry’s leader in profitability and manufacturing efficiency – the crown Toyota held for three decades.