Personally I think a more effective use of money to reduce fossil fuel consumption would be to provide subsidies to companies for remote work and a collective effort to go to a 4 day work week.

The problem isn't what kind of car I drive, it's that I need to drive it in the first place.

Public transport investment is probably a more efficient investment than either and avoids subsidizing only white collar positions that tend to be high income in the first place.

The problem isn't what a segment of the population is doing it's that everyone needs a car to get around.

But buying new cars also helps the economy

If the goal is reduction of carbon and environmental impact, building lots of new cars from newly mined materials is a bit silly.

There are often multiple goals. My guess is the reason why something like this is picked over something carbon negative is because of the economy. You can downvote it but it's $462 billion into car companies and all their subsidiaries, which is something that tends to have broad public support.

Each new electric car is going to have an impact on the environment during its manufacturing as well. Batteries aren’t all peaches and cream.

We should really just make a concerted effort to retrofit America so a car is not the only, default option.

Change the fuel economy standard so that no vehicle (including trucks and SUVs) can get less than 35mpg, and you’ll see the market drive the conversion to electric.

That’s a terrible metric. You want to deter vehicles that use a lot of fuel disproportionately to the cargo they’re carrying — not just punish heavy vehicles.

Most automobiles in the US are designed to carry up to five people, and almost always carry just a single person.

It still makes sense to target those with an MPG requirement.

We could also eliminate the Federal tax credits for farm vehicles -- actually we should alter the vehicles which qualify for the subsidy. Because current tax law encourages the purchase of vehicles larger than 8000 pounds for primarily personal, non-farm activity.

Almost insane touch that one, though; it hands the story to those who would oppose any reduction of carbon subsidy. I mention it by way of illustrating one of the myriad ways that hardworking, independent Americans depend upon Federal handouts. (Using emotionally provocative language on purpose here. I prefer to avoid such framing, not useful. Here I use it by way of another illustration of warped perspective on carbon economy status quo.)

What SUVs are carrying enough cargo to justify their mpg? I think commercial transport is of scope of what the commenter meant rather than the swath of empty pickups and jeeps being driven as daily drivers.

The only way to make people care about fuel economy is if it hits them in the pocketbook, like a few years ago when gas was above $4/gallon.

Unfortunately gas taxes to force the price that high under current circumstances are terribly regressive and politically suicidal in all but the most secure jurisdictions.

I like what Schumer is trying to accomplish, but I don't think his plan will be necessary, at least for maybe a decade. Schumer is assuming that Americans are not going to want on their own to switch to EV's, and so they need financial incentives.

However, from all I read starting in another two or three years there is going to be an explosion of demand by consumers to buy EV's. This will be for a number of reasons, including governmental regulations, improving EV's, many more manufacturers selling many more different models, expanding charging networks, and perhaps most important, EV's will start to have sticker-price parity with ICE autos.

Demand will grow much faster than supply. One reason for this is that demand for li-ion batteries for electricity storage will be growing rapidly at the same time. As a consequence demand is going to outstrip supply for many years. It won't catch up until 2030 or later, and only then will it make sense to subsidize car swaps.

To put things in perspective: USA is running a $1 Trillion deficit this year.

So, if global warming and pollution matter, $0.462 Trillion over 10+ years is nothing. Majors shifts are helped /require government intervention.

Continuing to encourage car usage will not solve environmental problems. Governments should invest in infrastructure to avoid one person in a car during peak hours. This suboptimal commute pattern is a major contributor to not only green house gases but also traffic congestion and reduced quality of life as a result.

One unexplored option is to build freeway bus services - build pickup and parking lots near freeway exits and reserve diamond lanes exclusively for commuter buses. Unlike trains this can reuse existing infrastructure and works well with company shuttles and the like.

Typical nonsense which is very broad and not only lacking specifics but does not take into account the unintended consequences of such an abrupt change in behavior.

Not only can't I find anything but an attention grabbing headline about this but even the basic idea and numbers are literally pulled out of nowhere.

And he uses a non exact number to make it appear to be legit and well thought out. $462 Billion not $500 Billion not 1 Trillion I mean absurd on it's face and solely intended to just make the number appear entirely realistic in some way.

Each EV is estimated to save the country $20,000 (air pollution health costs, fuel etc) so if this causes 23 million transitions it would pay for itself.

How about investing that $462B in high temperature fission reactors? Make carbon neutral fuel and electricity at the same time.

I hate comments like this when it comes to public policy. Humans and their organizations are capable of doing more than one thing at a time.

Energy policy is necessarily multifaceted. Carbon neutral electricity production and consumer fossil fuel consumption are two different problems, and while related, solving one of them does not negate any effort to solve the other.

Cash for Clunkers 2.0