Another Tony Stark type person was Stan Ovshinsky of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Conversion_Devices.
Thin-cell and flexible solar panels with major NiMH advancement.

Unlike Tesla, they produced the building blocks which many other companies could use in various products...including electric cars.
Stick a solar panel on everything in sight.
Supporting that company would have been seeding the general field of business, per se.

Like the EV-1, that company was quashed by GM/government and Texaco.

Are we planning for the future?:
Middle East Business: Dubai plans to spend billions on clean energy push
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/25/saudi-arabia-announces-plan-to-end-its-addiction-to-oil/
Israel's Electric Car Network: Can It Change the World? - TIME
My only contention is that an electric grid should be anonymous.

yeah, what gives that guy the right to complain about how tax dollars are spent?

See here. I write this stuff all day long

Mi-Grid | Hybrid Energy System

http://www.tetrawest.com/images/Mi-Grid_Economics.pdf

http://www.tetrawest.com/images/Mi-Grid_Economics_commercial.pdf

http://www.tetrawest.com/images/Mi-Grid_Mobile_flyer.pdf

http://www.tetrawest.com/images/Mi-Grid_90_fuel_reduction.pdf

http://www.tetrawest.com/images/Mi-Grid_How it_works.pdf

But the company went bankrupt in 2012. The Uni-Solar flexible panels were neat, but too expensive.

One of my friends is very environmentally concerned. His household recycles virtually everything. They spend a lot of time and effort to be green and compost and buy energy efficient appliances. All of that is great for him.

He spent a lot a time researching hybrid cars vs electric cars vs high fuel efficient cars and trucks. He put a lot of time and effort in his research. Looking at the total pollution of the vehicle from manufacturing, to daily use and ability to get him to and from his job and as a vehicle for everyday use he ended up with a Toyota Highlander SUV. I love to tease him about driving a SUV. When I first met him he was a young single guy driving a 930 Turbo.

He needs to be able to drive to his in-laws place in the middle of nowhere Texas and haul wife and two kids and get to work in inclement weather.

These infernal internal combustion engine-powered vehicles are inefficient compared to horse-drawn buggies. They are a passing fad.
- from Pelican Buggy Forum, 1906

Those internal combustion engines just don't have the range and reliability of strong horses! Not to mention they cost too much. Bunch of dudes!

And Henry Ford is a con-man.

Horses had a range of 30 miles per day. A man could walk father. Even early cars had ranges in the low 100 miles. Plus, the cars had much higher average sustained speeds. They were truly an improvement.

Look at Patton in action in Mexico. Horses cannot gallop at high speed for long distances.

The horses also had a rather um crappy type of exhaust. Imaging NYC if all the cars and trucks were replaced with horse drawn vehicles. They would have mountains of crap to shovel or the streets would be as high as the skyscrapers in short order.

Talk about ****ty traffic

I'm not sure I believe this.
On electrics in the US, much (but not all) of the stopping force is due to regenerative braking, which does not produce brake dust. I have no data, but I'd bet the minimal use of friction brakes on a 3500lb Volt produces less brake dust than the 100% use of friction brakes on a 3100lb Cruze.

True. In fact Toyota downsized the brakes because most of the braking was regenerative.

Um... and petrol power cars don't emit tyre and brake dust?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ugazcvzOM0Q

In San Francisco, they used it to create Golden Gate Park

If you think a discussion about Mr Musk involving a group that is primarily American tax payers will not be political, you are a fool.

Even if an electric car produced no brake dust at all, there would still be the issue of tire dust, the toxic processes to produce the batteries and the fact that an electric car is, to a large extent, inefficiently powered by coal. Sweet tax subsidy though

Still 40% coal in America.

It appears California is only 1% coal, not counting out-of-state imported energy.

I've wondered about and often questioned this for years. When occasionally mentioned in conversation, had some really widen their eyes. One is a chemical engineer working for a large tire producer. Add to the potential of and relation to cancer. If the latter, it would be such a massive undertaking in funding research and battles in the courts. So big it would bankrupt companies to countries in a domino affect. Taboo amongst oil producers, scientist and governments, but such is life.

To read this article objectively on needs to understand how start ups become going concerns.

Tesla now finally has product moving out the door but are still a startup company. The bet is that they will "soon" be a self sufficient going concern.

Creative financing is what got Apple off the ground and back off the ground a couple of times but look where it is now!

Disney doesn't pay property tax, yet florida seems to benefit greatly from having them there.

Back when, Detroit had more electric cars than petrol powered. Made sense at the time. Henry's wife drove one as well.

We've had a few brass era electrics in the family collection. Fun stuff and actually quite capable even to this day. Basic runaround townie stuff. One of them that my BIL had achieved a 100 miles at a vintage car event. A vehicle built in 1910.

Petrol powered came to being and also made sense and the electrics and purpose was left behind. But, had we during all those years focused on an infrastructure catering to electric cars, I think we'd be far ahead today.

So here were are now, companies, govt., people arguing back and forth and attempts to get electrics back in the mainstream. I personally don't like how the sub'z and funding have funneled in a snarky way but.... my hats off to Musk.

Screw it, someone has to be both the good and bad guy. Oil and corrupt policy, gov. relations is not any different.

Go forward Mister Musk.