1) CAFE standards are not being eliminated. They will be reduced from where the Obama administration set them.
2) ~90% if the reason legacy automakers sell BEVs and PHEVs in the US is to meet CARB ZEV requirements and 10% to meet CAFE standards. The Trump administration may try to eliminate CARB's waiver to implement their own requirements arguing that they are so strict they in effect override Federal standards rendering them meaningless and rending Federalsupremacy/authority meaningless. If not CARB has set a minimum of 22.5% of cars sold by each "large" automaker must be zero emission in 2025.
2) To fulfill its Dieselgate settlement obligations VW must spend $2.5B on zero emission vehicle refueling $800M of which must be spent in California. Some monies may end up going to H20 refueling stations but the bulk will go to CCS/CHAdeMO stations. If VW does not do it, it reopens the case to potentially larger fines and criminal prosecution. It has been estimated that when VW spends this money Electrify America charging network will be slightly larger than the Supercharger Network today. Plus the other Networks like EVgo,Chargepoint, and Blink will probably still be around.
Thanks for the clarification on the CAFE requirements. I hadn't read the details.
I suspect there will be a battle between the states and the feds over CARB, but ultimately I expect the states will probably win the fight. In this sort of thing the feds have overridden state law in the past by including language in a statute preventing the states from doing their own restrictions. This Congress is so dysfunctional I'm not sure they could pass a law like that right now.
I've never had to use anything but superchargers (and once a destination charger which is basically just an HPWC), but Tesla does make supercharging much easier than all the other charging systems out there. From what I've read from those who have used them, each one has a slightly different system and you need to sign up to various networks to get the best price, or to charge at all. And the various non-Tesla chargers have spotty maintenance. Even those who have to pay for supercharging, Tesla makes it easy.
It's back to the chicken and egg thing. When there are enough cars wanting to use other brands of fast chargers, then the owners of those chargers will put the effort into keeping them maintained. But when there are few non-Tesla EVs doing much long distance travel, it isn't worth it for the owners to pay to have the charger fixed when it breaks and it falls into disrepair. Some owners are just lazy and won't fix them even if they do make a small profit because they just don't get to it.
The article
@tftf posted about Ionify points out that Ionify's European network will be reaching about the size of Tesla's European network today in 2020, at which point Tesla plans to double their European network.
In any case, I do expect other car makers to come out with competing cars with Tesla. I don't expect every car to be a failure, but I also expect Tesla to remain a dominant player in the long range EV market. This thread is about long term fundamentals and Tesla is now too big a player for a competitor to push them out of the market or marginalize them. Tesla could still fail, but the only two likely scenarios where that happens are:
1) The global economy takes another severe hit that would not only harm Tesla, but would likely bankrupt other car makers too.
2) Tesla makes some major blunder with a product roll out that drives away customers in droves. That would require the Model 3 to be so flawed it gets a reputation akin to the Pinto or the Corvair.
There are some things that could ruin the world economy again. The players who caused the 2008 crash were never stopped, they just changed the game around and kept going.
Additionally there are a number of other things that could do significant damage to the world economy like a major war on the Korean Peninsula. Seoul lies within North Korean artillery range and the city could get shelled very heavily before the artillery positions were overrun. That would essentially shut down most of the world's flat screen production for a year or two. If the North Koreans decided to be very nasty, they could load their artillery with dirty shells (radioactive) which would render one of the world's largest cities essentially uninhabitable.
There are some hopeful signs that some kind of peace could be worked out, but more than one person involved in these negotiations are not renown for their stability.
The world has other problems that could boil up into an international crisis too. A war in the Middle East that leads to the price of oil skyrocketing is one scenario that would probably help EVs. But there are others that could hurt everyone including the EV industry.
In any case, barring one of the two scenarios above, Tesla is probably here to stay for the long haul and it could become one of the biggest car makers in the world. At minimum it will likely remain a strong contender. At least making 1-5 million cars a year. Which is a decent, medium sized car company.
