... I do not believe in miracles and I do not depend on god to come down and save us from our stupidity ...
So given that how should we proceed? Well by definition from the above the vast majority of people (it is human nature after all) are going to pray, wait for a miracle, put their faith in technology (Tesla, etc), deny reality, get out their fiddles, rearrange the deck chairs, and so on. Those of us who are not comfortable in the company of the above folks will try and actually work on solutions which could solve our problems and work towards helping create the next civilzational structure. That structure has to have very different forms of living and existing.
So enough of that as one can go on for hundreds of pages as I have done a number of times.
Back to your question of why ev's are not a solution and Musk is not the messiah. ...
The train is off the tracks and we are going in the ditch. It is not the end of all things as we have done this many times in our past. It happens to all civilizations. They grow, live and die. It is just our turn. But since we can see what is coming it is possible to make the transition easier going down and thus easier going up. This is what I advocate for - it is the correct moral and ethical choice. Managed decline in order to save as much as we can for those who come after us. Alternately - and what we seem to be doing - is to double down on faith in technology and miracles and pull out all the stops in order to find some way to scrape along trying to maintain BAU as long as possible. If we do this, and that is the unfortunate path I think we will take, it will leave a wasteland for the future and take them far deeper into the dark and leave them a far longer climb back into the light. And they will have all the BAU folks to thank for it. So if Musk wants my respect he drops his sci-fi fantasy of colonizing other planets and parks his Telsa and puts his creativity and wealth into working to solve the 3 great problems. Nothing else actually matters.
Jim, I respect your opinion even though I disagree with your premise.
I don't respect your communication style.
I don't believe anyone here has referred to, much less considers Musk the Messiah.
I don't believe anyone here is expecting a miracle.
And nobody expects EVs, or anything else to be a silver bullet. It will take a lot of partial solutions.
Cleaning up the grid is critical with or without EVs. With EVs, that part of our transportation automatically gets cleaner as our grid does.
I believe we have already put too much CO2 in the atmosphere to prevent a temp increase of 2C. I also believe things will get worse.
I also believe that if we can start slowing our CO2 emissions, we can soften the blow. I don't see your solution doing that, as almost no one will go that route.
Those that can be convinced to eat meat less often, drive more efficient cars than they currently are, downsize their houses, or move closer to town centers, will save millions of tons of CO2 each year. Not because each person is saving a huge amount, but because a lot of people can be convinced to save a little.
Those of us willing to do more, will do more (go vegan, don't have kids, install wind or solar, etc). This is wonderful, and I am thankful for everyone's contributions.
This, I believe, will soften the blow more than insisting everyone cut CO2 99%, which results in almost nobody cutting anything.
As for softening the blow, that is laudable, and is exactly what I am doing as well.