They existed years ago and I am skeptical that they are significant enough to make the average person even consider a new electric car. They are still too expensive for what they offer, even with heavy subsidies.

However, what I do see in Germany, are more and more electric cars in car sharing, rentals and company fleets. Upper middle class is going pretty electric as well to appear cool/caring about climate. Several Teslas in front of my building now since the new upper middle class apartments went up across the street. Several Audi e-Trons in the area as well. What's curiously missing is the ID.3 somehow - I expected to see many more at this point.

Volkswagen and many other well-known manufacturers are pushing out really decent electric models. I see a ton of Renault Zoes cruising around, electric Smarts as well. They simply fit well into the European market which is dominated by dense cities and short commutes (<100km).

Yes, right now electric vehicles are certainly an "upper middle class" thing. But that's largely because EVs are still new and the "average" person just can't afford to buy a brand new car every few years.

However, in 5-10 years we should start to see a mature market for good quality used EVs, making them much more accessible. At that point, better reliability, better driving experience, much lower operating costs, etc will make EVs the obvious choice for many, if not most, buyers.

> They are still too expensive for what they offer, even with heavy subsidies.

The average price paid for new US cars was $40K [0]. There are now plenty of models below that without subsidy, including Chevy Bolt, Nissan Leaf, VW ID4, Kia Niro, Hyundai Kona and even the low end of the Tesla 3. That's just the upfront price, of course TCO is lower than a same price ICE car because fuel and maintenance are lower.

[0] https://www.carscoops.com/2021/01/average-new-car-prices-in-...

What was the median price paid for new US cars?

> They are still too expensive for what they offer, even with heavy subsidies.

> Renault Zoes

In Berlin, Renault Zoes were (maybe still are?) _free_[0] to get for small businesses. I know multiple freelancers who took advantage of that deal. Yes, that might not be the "average person", but it's probably not insignificant either.

[0]: https://efahrer.chip.de/news/elektroauto-gratis-leasen-so-ko...

Yes, there are. About 6k per car. But this just preempts the price development in a growing market. And it helps the market to grow to a point where the cars do get cheaper because of scaling. On the other side: fossil fuels and especially car combustion engines are not taxed along the negative impact they have by toxic and carbon emissions.

If we want to tax combustion engines for negative externalities what deductions are we giving for the positive externalities?

better air quality, reduced risk of lung disease, longer, better lives?

The air quality in the west is better than it is in much less developed areas of the world. People live longer because of the use of fossil fuel and can live better lives spending less time on basic things like creating food and managing shelter to stay alive and they have more time doing meaningful things.

Fossil fuel industry is the industry that have made it possible for us to live longer, and feed as many people as we want while at the same time making the environments much cleaner over time.

> than it is in much less developed areas of the world

I believe Amazonia air quality is much better than air quality in Milan (where I lived for 10 years).

https://www.iqair.com/italy/lombardy/milano

> Fossil fuel industry is the industry that have made it possible for us to live longer

I'm not at war with fossil fuel industry, I was simply answering to this question

> what deductions are we giving for the positive externalities?

My dad worked in pulmonary oncology for 35 years, I think that better air quality, less lung disease and better overall environment is a reward itself, that's the prize we get for positive externalities (and in case of EVs the State incentives, in Italy they are up to 10k euros if you buy a new EV car and get rid of an old ICE one).

I was talking about the deductions for positive externalities of fossile fuel.

> I was talking about the deductions for positive externalities of fossile fuel.

There have been State incentives for at least two decades to buy new cars that produced less emissions on fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel industry benefitted of enormous deductions for over a century for their contribution to the industrial revolutions.

For example they never pay for the disasters they create [0][1].

[0] The oil spill of the Exxon Valdez in 1989 only costed $ 125 million to Exxon https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-and-state-alask...

[1] even when they paid a just fine (like the 60 billion BP paid for the spill in the Gulf of Mexico) it's peanuts compared to the environmental damages that the future generations will inherit (the mangroves still carry the damages from the Ixtoc spill of 1979, 40 years later)

Ixtoc soiled hundreds of miles of beaches, all the way to Texas. The fishermen also said that oysters that used to be found clinging to the mangrove roots seemed to have vanished after the spill and never returned.