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> but one motivation was to "stick it" to snobbish arrogant european manufacturers wanting to develop "clean" ICEs with "green fuels" or other non-sensical crimes against thermodynamics like H2-cars

Eh? Most European manufacturers (maybe not Stellantis) had at least one BEV by the time any Tesla was available in Europe. I'm not sure any European manufacturer has ever released a production hydrogen car? That's mostly Toyota.

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IIRC there were BMW i3, Nissan Leaf (2010) and later Renault Zoe.

BMW in cooperation with Toyota has/had H2 cars (currently iX5), but it is some sort of pilot phase.

Tesla with their model 3 and supercharger network demonstrated that electric vehicles indeed are viable, and that got the ball rolling.

There was also the VW eGolf/eUp, and the pre-Zoe Renault (which IIRC was a bit of a disaster). The first Tesla didn't become available in Europe til after the Zoe came out.

EDIT: Actually, looks like the eGolf was a few months after the Tesla Model S.

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