Almost 300 thousand electric cars and plans to have millions in a few years. The thing about Teslas electric cars is that they are BETTER than ICE cars, thus they provide H sapiens a competitive advantage. Because they provide advantage, H sapiens will naturally tend to want to acquire it. Thus Tesla provide a real path to decarbonization that is unfolding in front of our eyes. Not a talk, not a scientific paper, not a law. They are actually decarbonizing the economy
Archimid, you missed an important point there.
Tesla actually gave people something they could DO, individually, to work against the rapacious tendencies of big business in the use of hydrocarbons.
After a few attempts in the 70's, driven by the fuel crises of the Arab states doubling and tripling the cost of oil, big companies have had virtually 0 interest in radically changing the ICE to reduce fuel consumption.
Tesla gave the average person on the street a chance to say "I'm actually making an individual choice to make things better". Something which has, notably, been very lacking in Government choices. The very best alternate was when governments subsidised home solar so that people could invest in making things better and also make a very small improvement in their own lives at the same time. Sadly the financial crisis put a nail in that coffin.
There are bumps on the way. I talked about some of this on the battery thread. Right now, EV users are on a free ride paid for by the carbon fuel users. Because of the
fuel taxes which are not levelled on electricity.
If you read that article, you see that in the UK fuel users are taxed at 100's of % and EV users are taxed at 5%. At a sum of around £22bn, (subtracting VAT from fuel to compare), if everyone shifted to EV, taxes would have to shift.
This is not insurmountable and it will happen eventually. But those who bought an EV based on the not insignificant "saving", in their daily commute costs, are going to be rudely awakened when EV goes over 30% of the car population. I recall when LPG was the next best thing to sliced bread in reducing pollution. LPG was around 30% of the cost of petrol and diesel. Today it is nearer 70% due to the take up damaging taxes.
Tesla have led the world in their charge to get us off hydrocarbons. Governments have played a, largely unsung, role in keeping the taxes low to lure us into moving onto EV.
This has given us a choice to make a decision, which makes our world a better place, without having to put an X in a box on voting day with the, rather vain, hope that it will make things better.
The really great thing about that is how many people are actually doing it.
What I would love to know, should the playing field have been level on taxes, is just how many people would have made that choice without the cost benefit.
Of course once EV ownership hits 50%, governments will move to phase out the ability to buy fuelled vehicles. But that is still a couple of decades away even in production capability, let alone the number of cars on the roads.
