There are offsetting considerations such as - once the middle class in China starts to really grow and purchase more (ICE) cars (already happening), the demand for oil will go up significantly and eventually eclipse the demand in the US. This is one reason why China is pursuing alternative forms of energy and transportation - they understand this dynamic very well and are preparing for it.
At some point this demand will drive oil prices sky high which will dramatically shift the economics of EVs globally. A couple of decades or so behind China is India - things will only get worse.
Perhaps Tesla will not survive to this inflection point, but I have no doubts it is coming - only a matter of when.
Good luck depending on and believing what China claims to be doing. Middle class growing in China?? Whatever that means. Are those the same people being crushed under tanks or working in the equivalent of America's sweatshops in the early 1900s?
We as a society love to look at CO2 as an indicator of Global Warming/Climate change, whereas there are many other variables. Methane, in the first 2 decades of it's release has 84-86x more global warming effect than CO2 but the way we measure normalized for CO2 which lasts for centuries, thereby skewing the reality of methane.
It is so easy to bury our heads in the sand, ignore the statistics and just buy into all the propaganda. Right now, the USA, accounts for 15% of all CO2 emissions worldwide. China 30% and the EU 9%. China and the USA have similarly disparate geographical footprints yet China has a fraction of the automobiles the USA has. Currently, 28% of CO2 emissions in the USA comes from "transportation" of which 60% occurs from small vehicles, namely cars etc that S. Nugent is so concerned about.
The other reality is that in today's world, exclusive of building, mining and disposal costs to the environment, the true reduction of CO2 emissions between gas powered vehicles v. EV from the grid is about 50-60%, the best case scenario, exclusive of direct environmental impacts. So we have (.15x.28x.6x.5)=1.3% reduction in CO2 emissions Worldwide, if every car in the USA was EV; and that is the best case scenario ignoring the impact of mining, disposal and the fact that more of our solar grid is being manufactured by China, the biggest polluter in the world in manufacturing solar.
Of course the devil is in the details. The economic and environmental impact of mining rare metals, more and more occurring in 3rd world eonomies, the most polluting. The EU and USA, the biggest utilizers of solar energy, have farmed out their manufacturing to China, the biggest polluters. Despite what some may think, lots of energy, disposable and hazardous waste aside from mining has a tremendous environmental footprint and we have farmed this out to the biggest polluter in the World, namely China, which is not even part of the footprint calculation.
Should mountainjoe be correct, which I don't think he will, developing economies, like India etc, utilizing even more polluting energy will be the next source of "cheap labor" and hence locations to make our solar panels, lithium batteries, etc. creating even bigger environmental footprints than they do now (the etc. according to the EPA worldwide currently account for 60% of CO2 emissions)
Of course this ignores the methane factor as well as so many other factors. Methane as I state is 84-86x worse of greenhouse gas as is CO2 in the first two decades of release but the way environmentalists evaluate greenhouse gas over centuries, the effect gets mitigated because the HUGE effect in the first two decades gets spread out. Yes, Methane was a bigger factor before man became aware and the bigger and growing factor of methane is coming from people, cattle and more importantly from hydroelectric which so many environmentalists endorse. How? Well behind the dam, still water generates more bacteria, which emits more methane. The same happens in the dry river deltas. In their infinite wisdom, the US government chose to increase flow to the now dry and desolate CO river delta to try to revive the Mexican economy once dependent on flow and Methane emissions went up 100x as a result of the spores that were dormant. Or Owens Lake, just east of LA, now the totally drained and the biggest cause of dust pollution in the US.
Yes, there is hope as alternative rare metal manufacturing is emerging but if you are dependent on China for this don't hold your breath. No one is knocking down dams anytime soon, a bigger impact on Global Warming than any impact on what Americans drive every single day. In fact, in emerging markets just the opposite is happening.
So as Mike has pointed out, yeah, those who may see 1/4 of all vehicles being electric can feel "good" but as he pointed out, it makes up a tiny % and as I point out, the real difference is miniscule.
