On the contrary, thinking that merely switching to EVs is enough to combat the climate change leads to complacency.

I don't think this is true at all, anyone engaged with this work realizes how much effort is going to be involved in electrifying the vehicle fleet. It's only when you acknowledge that a problem is tractable that you can even begin to answer the question, "what do I do next to make this happen?"

There's tons more that we can be doing now to reduce transportation emissions. Investments in transit and bikes. Locating housing closer to jobs. Blocking highway widening efforts. All other efforts to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Ignoring all those on the belief that it is "tractable" to eventually reach net-zero without them, is exactly the complacency I was talking about! In other areas, reducing energy consumption is identified as a necessary and impactful way to reduce emissions in the short term, and make fully converting the grid to renewable easier in the long term. Why not here?