Nope. It should be prohibitively expensive to own any other car but an electric car. Because the externalized costs of carbon should be fully reconciled in the price of fuel. With the extra tax revenue here, a government could subsidize electric vehicles.

If your fix is waiting on people ( that are wealthy enough ) to choose an electric car over a gasoline car so they feel good about themselves we aren't going to get where we need to be in time.

The economically viable thing to do, needs to be the right thing to do. This is a place for regulation, not the free fucking market.

This won't work, because it means all the people who don't have money to buy a new car are now subject to your psychotic fuel tax. Your solution winds up being much more regressive than Tesla making rich people cars.

Or they might start living denser, walking and biking more, using and supporting public transport, like the rest of the world's lower-earning people. People adapt to the circumstances in front of them.

At first glance there are free market options. 1) Used electric; 2) Cheaper electric; 3) Lease; 4) Ride hailing services. Note option 1 includes used Teslas which will become more and more plentiful in the future.

The problem is so many gas cars are going to be dumped on the market that they are going to become dirt cheap to the individual consumer, while the external costs spread to everyone will be more and more burdensome. That’s where regulation will be needed.

Tesla cars are no longer just for the wealthy. TCO over five years for a Model 3 is lower than for a Honda Accord.

Tesla is not creating eco cars. While electric cars are better than equivalent ICE cars, Teslas are still too big and too heavy and have a pretty big impact just being manufactured. It takes many, many miles before a Tesla's manufacturing emissions are recouped by the electric drive.

They are designed for a 1 million mile lifetime (and 500k mike battery lifetime currently but this may improve). So that’s not a problem.

It is a problem insofar as you trade more emissions for the next ten years at least for fewer emissions later and you cement in infrastructure for vehicles that are larger than needed. It seems better to me to encourage the use of smaller vehicles, public transport, and (electric-)cycling. For example I once owned a 1992 Renault Twingo. It needed about 5.5l/100km in the city. Why don't we slap a modern engine in a car of that weight class or build even smaller cars? It would be pretty hard to beat their lifetime emissions with an electric 3 ton SUV and they'd use less space in cities, allowing for denser neighborhoods where you need the car less.

> So... my advice is buy/lease a Tesla and show it around. At the very least you’ll have fun.

If your current cars 20+ years old and on it's last legs then yes, if it's not then you'll create more pollution from manufacturing the Tesla than you'll (potentially) save.

That article has been debunked.

That's not a bad point - you gotta beat them before you change them.