I wonder if Tesla was a grift from day 1. They seemed to be the halo EV company that everyone accepted, until the charismatic leader moved on.

You need government support to make EVs a preferred option. Poor folk buy cheap cars, and they mostly rent. The whole scenario around EV charging is a shitshow, and the tax incentives were insufficient to fix it. I had a Model Y for awhile and really liked it, and now have a fancy Japanese hybrid SUV. It's much less of a pain in the ass then the EV was.