From an environment POV, I'm not even convinced EVs are a straight win. Depending on whose analysis you believe, the breakeven point is several years at least, up to 5 years. And I don't believe these analyses because most of my life I drove cars 20+ years old. I think it's more likely by far that some applications for EVs are a slam-dunk and others not. With proper market management, these would be discovered by the market. This is basically the problem with command economic decisions...
Anyway, even assuming that EVs replacing ICE is always a good thing, an intelligent transition to a larger proportion of electric vehicles COULD be done (I don't think 100% would ever make sense. I don't know what makes people so starry eyed about any technology to force 100% adoption). However, as predictable it is NOT being done intelligently. You would start by requiring bumping up electric codes meaning an extra 50A or 100A service would be included for dwellings with garages or parking. Then you would map out a plan to upgrade the residential grid, improve the charging network, and increase and diversify the power sources, probably something to the tune of building dozens of new power plants (nuclear is the only thing that would make sense). None of that happens fast but with proper promotion of the cars themselves, you could achieve detectable progress in 10 years and substantial shift in the fleet in 20-50. This isn't happening. What's happening is almost nonsense.
First of all, if the government really cared about the environment they wouldn't have done everything possible to destroy the compact and fuel efficient car market in the first place. They wouldn't have spent decades dismantling our rail infrastructure, leaving us as the only nation in the world with no practical alternative to air and car transport. If they cared one tiny bit about the environment or carbon emissions they wouldn't completely ignore bicycle infrastructure and would scale back the manic obsession with road-building (1 person biking is probably worth 10 people switching to EVs for climate). They would be pushing nuclear and incentivizing telecommuting. I think all of those things by themselves could have a bigger impact on the climate that switching to electric vehicles. But all of those things require real changes to be made to the grift. America cannot innovate anymore. In 2022, we can't do anything besides what we already doing. Electric cars are the perfect thing because they slot in without really changing anything. It took a while to get the legacy car companies onboard but now that we have established a proper corruption/fascism framework between the auto industry and government incentives and all the correct people can get rich, the script is already written and we will have electric cars and like them.
Due to demand elasticity, switching to electric cars will inevitably INCREASE driving if driving electric cars is really cheaper, and with the marginal improvement of an electric vehicle over ICE vehicles being so small to start with, EVs might make no difference at all. Which is a perfect way to appear serious while keeping the grift moving. It's something that can be done as smoke and mirrors to avoid making real changes, in a way that can be done without ticking off industrial donors or rocking the boat all that much.
