I don't have an interest in Tesla nor do I particularly like Musk, but objectively speaking, they must have done something right - they started a mass-car company from scratch in the third millennium, something very very hard; they popularized a technology that had failed to get traction for decades, and have taken the fight to behemoth corporations that had been bearish on the sector's overall future since the '90s. That simply cannot be just marketing or "gimmicks".

The "supercharger" network is something that no other manufacturer was doing or was seriously interested in doing, and it's an extremely practical concern.

> When the IC companies convert over

... a lot of them they might well end up buying batteries from Tesla. Tesla will also continue to be the benchmark against what EV will be measured, in the same way Ford continued to be a reference for decades after competitors matched them.

Everyone else has to buy to cover the 99% pctile or they’re screwed when they need to do something somewhat unusual (long drive to grandmas house, move, vacation, family emergency, whatever).

And for those who say ‘just rent!’ - I’ve tried, and most of the times you’d want to, you can’t get a rental, because a bunch of other folks got there first! Rental companies can’t buy enough cars to handle peak usage a few times a year.

If 90% of the time one can own a median vehicle wherein they never have to go to the gas station, the vehicle lasts 1,000,000 miles, they aren’t emitting CO2, and gas prices go past five dollars…

it might be common sense to use the savings from the situation to rent vehicles to satisfy the other 10% of your needs.

But hey, maybe your idea of common sense is to sit around 16 feet in the air with 120 mph winds blowing against the side of your moving brick.