[rsynnott]

> I think the reticence is the old attitude that you basically had to drag the old car manufacturers to electric,

But... that's not really true? Nissan and Renault's first modern electric platforms predate the Tesla Model S. VW's is only slightly newer (and of course it had a few NiCad false starts in the 90s).

> then they insisted on doing design after design of the clearly inferior hydrogen alternative

That's mostly just Toyota.

> If they really "cared" about EV this would have come 20 years earlier given the sheer scale of endowed resources they had

No, it wouldn't. VW and GM, at least, tried in the 90s, but it just wasn't a runner with NiCad batteries. Electric cars were effectively gated on battery tech.