beachhead

EVやpig-in carの市場に占める割合は決して高いとは言えませんが，今後は間違いなく主流になっていくでしょう。beachheadは軍事用語で「海岸堡（ほ）：敵前上陸後の最初の拠点」という意味。そこから転じて「足がかり, 出発点」という意味があります（『プログレッシブ英和中辞典』小学館）。この文脈におけるestablished a beachheadは「（市場への）足がかりを築いた」と解釈できます。（Koyamamoto）

Make Way for Kilowatts: A Growing-Up Year for Plug-Ins
FOR those who advocate the electrification of the automobile, it has been a good year. No fewer than eight significant plug-in models came to market in the United States in 2012.
That’s progress, but even if the absolute number was modest, the heft of the companies behind them could not be ignored: battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars arrived from BMW and Honda, while Ford and Toyota each released two. Tesla and Coda, California-based electric specialists, offered sedans with starkly different levels of appeal.
...Public charging stations continue to sprout in forward-thinking communities, but there was little headway toward standardizing plugs for the fast-charging systems that would help to neutralize public resistance to E.V.’s.
Despite their small share of overall sales, plug-in cars seem to have established a beachhead this year, regardless of the ups and downs revealed in the year’s electric car headlines.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/automobiles/a-growing-up-year-for-plug-ins.html?hpw&_r=0