As always, I realise that on this here orange website it is highly inappropriate to read the article, but the article is about mass adoption of BEV heavy trucks.
Cargo ships and passenger jets are another matter, of course, and we won't be seeing battery ships (except for regional ferries) or battery planes of any sort anytime soon, but he was wrong about trucks.
Considering that the quote specifically talks about "long-haul vehicles", and that the article that no one read explicitly said "The long haul story is different. European and North American long haul operators require far more from a truck than a Chinese domestic short range tractor offers", I do not see why Gates' comment aged so badly.
Ehhh, it's surprisingly practical to pack a bit of a ship with batteries to get 3~5 days of range, at least for ships as efficient per unit mass an an Emma Maersk and above.
What's less practical is the grid to support the fast charger that can recharge it in the ~10 hours it takes to unload and reload it.
Trans-atlantic battery container ship is technically feasible.
It won't be economic until you charge the oil burners loads for the CO2, and even then it might be that some kind of non-carbon burner of fuel cell beats it. Looking at ammonia concepts, for example.
