The simplest way to make electric cars more successful is to increase the artificially low price of gasoline, e.g. By factoring in the costs of our mid-east foreign policy and a good deal of our navy since both are driven in large part by our need for oil.

I agree. But don't expect any magic.

Europe has much higher costs of gasoline than the USA. They still don't have roads full of electric cars.

We do have a lot fewer SUVs and other gas guzzlers, though.

> They still don't have roads full of electric cars.

yet. Government subsidizes 100% electrical cars heavily in the form of low / no road taxes or lease tax, and with a high amount of <100 km commuter traffic, electrical cars with their limited range make sense.

There aren't many Hummers either.

Americans drive a lot more than Europeans. I'm not sure if it's a totally fair comparison, but still a good point.

Yes. And driving less is one of the predictable reactions to higher petrol prices.

It's also a space thing. As a Brit the thing I didn't get so well before going there is how sodding big the US is, and how normal it's citizens think it is to drive to the next town over which just happens to be an hour or so away.

I was doing just this with a German foreign exchange student in Missouri once. He commented about halfway there that, if he were at home, we'd be in Poland already.

Americans will continue to drive automobiles more than Europeans if gas prices were to go to parity. Our mass transit infrastructure is laughable by comparison. Also, we're way more spread out than Europe is.

Electricity costs are significantly higher than in the USA as well.

It might be a simple solution, but that doesn't make it a good solution. The number of unintended consequences will be enormous.

For example: Will you tax diesel as well? If not, then people will switch to that, with poor results for our air quality.

If yes, then suddenly every since thing you buy will be more expensive, since it's all shipped.

And those are just the first two things that popped into mind - there will be a LOT more consequences.

So you are fine subsidizing oil companies by allowing them to externalize their costs?

Also shipping is starting to switch to natural gas; you may think this a good or a bad thing, but a tax on diesel would increase that.

No, you do it by taxing gasoline and diesel

You can discriminate between uses in a way similar to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_diesel#reddiesel

Taxing fuel is very much solved problem elsewhere.

You just tax the carbon emissions.

Exactly. Tax the negative externality [1]. Let people make decisions factoring in more of the costs.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax

Taxing carbon emissions is a fine idea, but gasoline (and other petroleum products such as diesel) also need to pay for the costs of US mid-east policy. We've never had terrorists blow up buildings or a marine barracks because of our coal mining activity.

The costs of Middle East policy doesnt need factoring in, they are there already. And the cost of petrol isn't the same everywhere as it is in the US, and is significantly inflated by taxes in many places. Over 50% of what I pay is tax.