In fairness to VW and petrol car manufacturers in general, I do believe that EV industry is driven by marketing hype. Investors are trying to follow the hype, ignoring the facts. And the facts are - the current EV technology, which is based on Lithium-Ion battery packs, does not provide significant advantages over cars with internal combustion engine.
EV is not the future of transportation, but rather one of the types of vehicles that will exist on the market in the mid-term future. Similar to lawn movers and pressure washers. You can have a fancy battery mover, that is underpowered, has short range, is expensive and short-lived (been there done that), or you can have a Honda mover. You can have electric Karcher, or a powerful gas pressure washer. Both types of products exist on the market, and both types have their uses.
I considered buying Model 3 for my wife a year ago. Did some math, decided against it, and bought her similar sized compact car VW Jetta that is as expensive to run as Model 3, half the price of Tesla, does not require hiring electrician to install 50 A outlet, and can be refilled in minutes anywhere.
The most surprising part was electricity cost.
Model 3 has rated economy of 26 kWh per 100 miles. Some users reported on forums 0.33 - 0.36 kWh/mile of actual economy, higher in winter, but let’s forget about that for a moment, and use the official 0.26 kWh/mile rating.
I pay 23 cents per kWh for electricity (11 cents for actual power, and 12 cents is delivery charge).
Putting charger efficiency and wiring power losses aside, 5.98 cents would buy me a charge that is good for 1 mile of travel (23 cents/kWh * 0.26 kWh/mile = 5.98 cents/mile)
Today gas price at the nearby station is $2.16 per gallon. So for the price of a gallon, I can charge Model 3 enough to travel 36 miles (216 cents/gallon / 5.98 cents/mile = 36 miles/price of gallon of petrol)
So thanks to greedy power distribution companies and low petrol prices, where I live the running cost of Model 3 is equivalent to running cost of petrol car with 36 MPG mileage rating - typical rating of a similar sized petrol compact passengers car.