There are ~600 charging stations worldwide, and that's increasing to 1200 during 2016. But you think it's "largely true" that there's no charging infrastructure?
600 charging stations worldwide? That's worse than I thought. I'm traveling across country as we speak (I live in an RV). I've seen one electric car charging option in the past few weeks...I've filled up over a dozen times in that period. Realistically speaking, you cannot take an electric car on vacation.
That doesn't mean I don't love electric cars (I even held TSLA for a while before needing to sell some stocks for a major purchase...I kept my GOOG and sold my TSLA).
One can love electric cars while still acknowledging what they cannot yet do. There was a time when horses were a better cross country means of transit than automobiles because there wasn't infrastructure for cars yet. We're at that stage for electric cars. It'll pass.
Availability of non-Tesla electric charging depends vastly on where you are. In the northeast, there are a bunch of places that have 2-4 EV spaces with a CHAdeMO connector which (anecdotally) are always full. So if you're planning a trip cross-country, you basically have to stick to the interstates for superchargers.
If you have an RV, you probably think that traveling cross-country via only the interstates is a pretty bad way to see the sights though :).
The bottom line is that even if an EV meets your daily needs, it isn't going to be good enough to be your only car. That really isn't going to be the case until EVs regularly have a 350-400 mile range, the supercharger network is reasonably dense, and a supercharger can top off your car in 10-15 minutes, tops.
Therefore, emphatically Yes, it's "largely true" that there is no charging infrastructure.
All of the things people have cited as challenges for EVs are still true:
- limited charging infrastructure - limited range - limited data on longevity (look at Leaf's battery life)
The range issue may be moot for commuters, who drive 40-50 miles. They can also plugin at home, and recharge at night.
EVs will grow in usage. Slowly.
The question of whether Tesla can scale up its manufacturing operation is a different one. Unrelated to EVs.
If you take a look at the affordable EV segment, in the 2011 to 2016 era, it has been represented only by Nissan Leaf.
People are reporting anywhere between 15-30% of capacity loss within the first 45,000 miles. The problem with battery powered vehicles is that there's a guaranteed loss of capacity after N charge cycles, which currently seems to be ~600-800 charges (77 miles of range x 600 charges = 46,200 miles)
Teslas have obviously not run into this problem yet, because their range is 200+, so you'd only start seeing significant capacity losses at 120,000 miles driven, which I'm guessing not many people have done since 2012.
But for smaller range vehicles this presents a significant problem: the commute you are able to make in the beginning of ownership may suddenly become impossible in just 3-4 years of driving. And how do you get more range? You need more batteries.
In fact the first vehicle to solve this and have a decent enough capacity buffer at an affordable price will be Tesla 3.
On the other hand, this will put the nail in the coffin of the "not being able to scale" argument. In fact, Tesla 3 will be successful ONLY if they're able to scale.
Electric cars are getting there, but you need to be in a specific location and have specific requirements for owning one to make sense.