He might be genuine good guy or a wolf in sheep's clothes.
At the end of the day, his intentions matter less than his actions.
So far, he's bringing attention to the Lugenpress, selling flamethrowers and advancing science in areas that were cockblocked for decades by (((powerfull interests))).
>the usefulness of fully electric vehicles
I don't blame you for not knowing about this, since it's constantly blocked/erased from public attention.
Your average combustion engine has an efficiency of 40%. And that's with all the modern hoopla where they attach a fuckload of things to it, otherwise it would sink to 25-30%.
If you're not an engineer: this means that when you load your car with 100 galons of gas, 60 of those galons are not used in moving it. They only end up producing vibration/sound, heat and little else.
On the other hand, electrical engines sport efficiency rates of 98% at minimum. The best one's sit at 99% (but require some specialized hardware to control).
If you want to know how big this is, it's what allowed people to have Fridges at home. Earlier models were based on combustion engines, but had no market: noone wanted to pay a fuckload of fuel to keep food fresh. At best, some super-market chains and restaurants had fridge chambers that were operated by combustion engines.
It was the effiency of the electrical engines that made Fridges cheap enough for the average consumer.
One funny detail: if you ask Volskwagen, Ford and Nissan about the effiency of their engines, they'll give you an 70-85% number. However, they'll neglect telling you how it's measured.
You calculate the amount of thermal energy you inserted based on the gas used. Then you calculate the amount that was expelled from the exaust. Subtract one from the other and voila! 80% effiency, easy as pie.
Then you ask your Physics teacher to teach you how to calculate the amount of energy to move a 700kg object 1000 meters, compare to the gas you burned for driving that long and you'll get the 40% value.
tl,dr: More than electrical engines being good, it's combustion engines that are pretty crap. I'm crossing my fingers Musk can get his Tesla on the market, but I'm not putting blind faith in the guy.