The hardware production is the race. I don't like BYD, but they've taken full advantage of Tesla's unwillingness to deliver on a truly economic vehicle. Until Tesla takes that crown, the entire AI discussion isn't really even on the table.
Amusingly, the Ford Transit commercial van is cheaper in electric than in gas-powered. But on the consumer product side, there's still a big price premium for electric, and you usually have to get an excessive 'trim level'.
Stellantis screwed up so badly that sales dropped about 40% and the CEO was fired, after collecting the biggest bonus in automotive history for "cutting costs". Betting on "mild hybrids" and extra post-sale fees was a disaster.
Nobody in US automotive is investing in solid state batteries the way BYD and CATL are. There's technical risk, but if those things work, IC cars are over. 9 minute charge and a few hundred miles of range.
This, even if you embargo the new tech, if the new tech is a lot better, it will create a more broad economic disadvantage in not adopting it.
Gas stations are all about location.
There will probably be a business in doing a turnkey conversion. Prepare to bring in heavy power, shut down gas station, remove pumps, remove tanks, clean up and repair convenience store, put in chargers on the islands, replace signage, power up.
This sort of transformative shift rarely happens from within. At least not easily.
Volkswagen basically bet the farm on electric vehicles. They were late to the party, but went all in, so you cannot blame them for trying to block EVs. I rather suspect that making cheap EVs is just extremely difficult if you intend to make a profit. I bet they lost a good sum of money on every eUp! they produced (here in Germany you could get them for 15,000€ at the right time, which is a steal), so they decided to quit producing it, which IMO is a real shame, because it is such a cool car for inner city commuting.
In the future, a car without self-driving software will be as useless as a computer without an operating system. Hardware companies will be at the mercy of software companies. All the margins will be made in software. Hardware already has super thin margins nowadays.
Nokia didn't fail because of the way they made phone hardware.