If ford and Toyota were marketing their vehicles to people that for the most part had substandard access to gas, or gas fluctuated enough that they were caught paying higher prices based on the time of day, they may very well have come out with accessories to deal with this, such as standard equipment tow-hitches on all cars and small gas trailers, so you could plan a trip to the gas station that might be a ways away, and for when gas is cheap.

We don't generally have that problem in the US thought, and places where that might be useful are dwarfed by the markets it's not at that point, so it doesn't make sense. Otherwise, yes, that would be a big missed market opportunity for car companies. A chance to sell more stuff, and put it all under the same financing.

That is, the difference between Tesla and the ICE automakers is that one of them has a resource (fuel) distribution problem that was already solved a long time ago, and one doesn't. That necessitates different strategies.

Right, because then Ford could sell you a backyard oil well and refinery to fuel the Focus parked in your garage.

What do you mean by true success? The more of an ecosystem you can provide for the more competitive you can potentially be. If Ford and Toyota owned or control enough oil, like say certain countries do, and they would sell that oil cheaper to you if you owned a Ford or Toyota - and yes, they could potentially be more successful.

Tesla also generated cash, even if you subtract off ZEV credits. That's a big deal for a subset of investors, when a significant argument against the merger is that it's going to eat too much cash.