Separately Norway is one of the richest countries on the planet thanks to its offshore oil. Their sovereign fund dwarfs Saudi Arabia in comparison so maybe they currently can cannibalize that revenue to build a supergrid.
China is building an ultra high voltage direct current supergrid to accommodate future EV needs (using primarily coal as a power source). I don't see this happening anywhere else?
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2171432...
Here's a map of the high voltage power grid. I don't think anywhere is more than 50km from a transmission line.
https://en.energinet.dk/-/media/9160AAB5C484432399767220B78D...
The increase will be gradual, and no doubt the power grid company is already planning for it.
If they have 240v outlets, that's half the battle. That is around 31 miles per hour of charge, from a standard outlet (although you have to make sure your wiring is good) without any extra infrastructure.
This may not be sufficient for a cross-country drive across the continental US, but for most european countries? You can drive 300 miles and charge overnight even with no fast charging at all.
Compare this with setting up gas stations (digging underground to install the tanks, logistics to keep them topped off, etc) and gasoline starts to look quite insane. It's just that we have this existing infrastructure built over a century that we take for granted.
If people purchase EV _en masse_, they'll have charging stations everywhere. There's no egg/chicken problem here.
I’m not saying we can’t upgrade production (I’m actually significantly more optimistic than the best case IAE estimates), but it’s not as trivial as just installing some new wires and transformers.
Probably you're never far from a high voltage transmission line.
Map: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=tesla+s...