Car companies were asleep at the wheel before Tesla. Selling EVs is perfect because they have lower OpEx at the cost of a higher CapEx. Higher CapEx means more revenue for the car manufacturers, and higher valuations in the long run if they can maintain their profit margin.

Car manufacturing will be a more valuable industry as EVs become the standard, but definitely not fast enough to quadruple the value of the industry in a handful of years. Not unless we start overvaluing every company like Tesla.

A good thing to remember here is that most of the media-based investing is the product that Wall Street* sells. Cathie Woods' job is marketing and sales. She needs to make "big bets" or say outlandish things because her market niche is hyper-focused on tech futurism. She'll take her carry and move on with her life and so long as she can always move the goalposts people will continue to invest based on that marketing. Once 2026 and Tesla isn't a $7 trillion company (though I personally think it still has massive upside if Elon quit being a fucking lunatic) she can say the pandemic or Twitter or something stymied the growth and it's actually 2036 now that it'll be a $7 trillion company and so invest now! Etc. etc.

* This is an oversimplification and financial firms do provide very valuable services and products to customers and clients around the world.