> even the most diehard gas-car fans won't be able to resist
They just won't have a choice; if we can provide a real alternative, we can just forbid gas car altogether. Just like we banned CFC to save the ozone when better alternatives were developed.
The main issue is that our electricity grids and production facilities aren't ready yet to sustain a mass shift to electric, so we need to ease in the transition. But the moment they are, there is no reason to delay any further.
> They just won't have a choice; if we can provide a real alternative, we can just forbid gas car altogether. Just like we banned CFC to save the ozone when better alternatives were developed.
Banning gas cars outright, I think, would be a political miscalculation. There is broad mistrust of anything the government does right now in the US (not wholly undeserved), and it is likely to continue getting stronger, so not tainting it with a political ban would be a better solution in my view. Otherwise you risk polarization and failure, because not everyone buys climate change, or banning something because X is determined to be better now. It also would breed widespread resentment from people who aren't ready to switch (because, let me tell you, outside of cities, "reduces climate change" is something nobody cares about as a selling point). Just let electric vehicles naturally become better at everything and let gas cars slowly die naturally. The "invisible hand" will take care of the rest - just like it did with the horse and buggy.
You don't even have to ban it outright; you just ban making new ones (though even the CFC ban wasn't 1000% complete; there's been evidence that some companies were 'faking finding old supplies').
People who "really want to" will keep old ones working and most people will slowly start using the new ones.
After all you can still get a horse-drawn carriage if you want to, and you can drive a Model T, but few people bother.
They just won't have a choice; if we can provide a real alternative, we can just forbid gas car altogether. Just like we banned CFC to save the ozone when better alternatives were developed.
The main issue is that our electricity grids and production facilities aren't ready yet to sustain a mass shift to electric, so we need to ease in the transition. But the moment they are, there is no reason to delay any further.