I agree with all of your comments here in principle, but I think the overall message is incomplete. Wealthy people should of course be able to buy EVs for whatever reasons they want without government intervention, but they should realize that mass production of EVs in rich Western countries will not outpace ICE production for many decades in the developing countries such as China and India.
Therefore, the enormous expense to convert to EVs in the US will in no way lead the world to a net zero CO2 environment in the foreseeable future. A better world would come from using those same resources to help underdeveloped countries out of poverty so that they can also protect themselves against any adverse conditions due to changes in climate, if in fact increased CO2 does lead to a more challenging environment.
I think that discussions involving how EV proliferation can make sense in a free market environment still lends credence to the notion that EV dominance is a worthy goal. But EVs on a large scale would only make sense if their advantages over ICEs significantly mitigated an ensuing climate disaster, which it won't.
There is a place for EVs, but it makes more sense to me if we demonstrate that producing EVs en masse has essentially no impact on climate change and is extremely expensive. In other words, buying an EV should not be associated with signaling green virtue.
Thank you for the article
I agree with all of your comments here in principle, but I think the overall message is incomplete. Wealthy people should of course be able to buy EVs for whatever reasons they want without government intervention, but they should realize that mass production of EVs in rich Western countries will not outpace ICE production for many decades in the developing countries such as China and India.
Therefore, the enormous expense to convert to EVs in the US will in no way lead the world to a net zero CO2 environment in the foreseeable future. A better world would come from using those same resources to help underdeveloped countries out of poverty so that they can also protect themselves against any adverse conditions due to changes in climate, if in fact increased CO2 does lead to a more challenging environment.
I think that discussions involving how EV proliferation can make sense in a free market environment still lends credence to the notion that EV dominance is a worthy goal. But EVs on a large scale would only make sense if their advantages over ICEs significantly mitigated an ensuing climate disaster, which it won't.
There is a place for EVs, but it makes more sense to me if we demonstrate that producing EVs en masse has essentially no impact on climate change and is extremely expensive. In other words, buying an EV should not be associated with signaling green virtue.