No, apparently Tesla did all that on it's own.
Any automaker gets ZEV credits and federal tax credits for their EVs sold, Tesla is the only automaker selling EVs people want to buy (in quantity). Tesla has already sold more Model 3s in a quarter than Chevy has sold Bolts ever. So why is Tesla the one selling hundreds of thousands of EVs per year and no one else is?
"How dare Tesla take advantage of these regulatory and market advantages anyone else could be taking advantage of!" /s
For my personal usage, when I am traveling (which usually is something like driving 2000 miles with a single long stop) filling/charging time makes all the difference between getting there how I want it or not, too.
Very, very few people use their car as you describe (2000 miles in a single sprint). If you must perform such a trip, most will fly or rent a car just for that trip.
Not too many people might use the car exactly like that, and I do it only when I actually need to get the car there. Otherwise flying is more pleasant. But there are quite a few use cases where recharge/refuel time, usually for people who need cars to make a living.
Personally, I just will not, ever, buy anything from Musk, because I think that he is a terrible (even by SV standards) person, but yeah, sure, Teslas obviously work for some people. But saying that they are the bestest, uncompromiziest, never before had the world seen anything as awesome super-vehicles is just ridiculous.
If anything, driving across Southern US, even if you are on a leisurely road trip, in a car with cooled seats (a $30K Hyundai works) is far more pleasant than in a car with fart jokes.
It's disingenuous to claim that subsidies for petroleum are remotely the same thing as subsidies for EVs. You're comparing corn to apples here. The proper comparison would be subsidies for renewable energy like solar and wind to subsidies for petroleum, since in both cases the subsidies are indirect to the market that's were talking about: automobiles.
It's also disingenuous to claim that subsidies stretching out over a century, and partially rooted in global geopolitical politics, are the same thing as subsidies that have been around for about a decade.
Finally, it's disingenuous to cite the "trillions" of subsidies worldwide for petroleum while leaving out the hundreds of billions of subdisidies that green power like solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, and nuclear have received worldwide.
Tesla has already sold more Model 3s in a quarter than Chevy has sold Bolts ever....So why is Tesla the one selling hundreds of thousands of EVs per year and no one else is?
The Chevy Bolt is supply-constrained; total global production is 30,000 vehicles a year. There are currently waitlists at every dealership selling a Bolt. Competing EVs like the iPace are similarly supply-constrained and also have months-long waiting lists. Unlike Tesla, other automakers launch models slowly and scale up production as demand proves itself and production hiccups reveal themselves and are addressed. Last I checked, there's no months-long waiting period to get a Chevy Bolt fixed because (a) they don't need fixing straight out of the factory like so many Teslas do and (b) the supply of repair parts is readily accessible due to Chevy's mastery of basic automobile logistics...
Outside of SV, Teslas aren't viewed as any cooler than Priuses. They're actually seen as much worse--elitist vehicles--since Priuses are affordable for most families and Teslas are not, plus require lots of expensive infrastructure just for basic use.
I know a few people who drive Teslas. Not one of them is someone who would even be remotely described as cool. I know a lot of people who drive Priuses, and they range the gamut from dorky to cool.
Ignoring the cultural impact of Tesla is why plenty of green vehicles failed in the past.
What cultural impact? Tesla's influence operates largely in a self-made echo chamber. Outside of the echo chamber, it's had literally no impact on car sales or car culture.
Green cars failed in the past because they were (a) super expensive and (b) had no marketing spend. Tesla's innovation was the same innovation that Toyota made a decade earlier with the Prius--green cars will sell if you market them to customers. (And despite Elon's claims that Tesla spends $0 on marketing, Tesla spends roughly $100m/year or more on marketing, per their SEC filings.)
Teslas appeal to both the customers who want to be green and the ones who don't give a rat's ass about the environment. They look nice, they go fast, they hardly require any maintenance and they have a badass infotainment system which no other manufacturer has been able to get right. The first Model S really popped and people were buying it in spite of the uncertainty around it being electric. Then they started loading them up with tech and driver aids.
I get that it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I don't know how anyone who's into cars can look at one and not find something cool about it.
As for "expensive infrastructure", you do realize the first car manufacturers didn't decide to start building gas cars in the beginning simply to take advantage of the gas station infrastructure that was already in place? Electric cars are here to stay. Sooner or later somebody had to start building charging stations just like somebody had to start building gas stations.
I don't understand this comparison. Yes, it's a commuter appliance. Any car you spend 90k on is going to look nicer and go faster than a Prius. So will a 7 series, who cares?
What the Prius did is mainstream the idea of hybrids and "green" vehicles in general, and they've sold a zillion of them. Go ahead and call it boring (it's super boring), but so is essentially every other commuter car it's competing against. The Model S on the other hand has only "popped" among people who can buy luxury sports cars to begin with. It's fast, it's impressive, and it's a niche luxury product whose entire fleet is a rounding error in Prius sales figures.