At this stage, they’re so intertwined with every day life that additional regulation—or removal of subsidies—will cause widespread impacts across many commercial industries, let alone unnecessary personal transport.
The only ‘saviour’ from the environmental perspective is the introduction of electric platforms like Rivian. The thought of the battery market being further constrained by mall creepers terrifies me.
Electric cars are here to save the auto industry, not the environment or society. Powering a 2000-kg vehicle to move a 100-kg human is beyond wasteful.
More mass means more kinetic energy when moving. In the vast majority of cars, all the kinetic energy is wasted as heat when braking. More mass means more rolling friction on the tires. More energy wasted means more gasoline burned, more resources used, more pollution generated.
Here's another way to frame it: If weight is not waste, would you volunteer to manually pedal a 2000-kg quadricycle to drive yourself to work? Do you not appreciate the vast increase in energy to move a heavier vehicle?
Finally, look at the GMC Hummer EV versus their e-bike: https://www.gmc.com/electric/hummer-ev/insider/awd-ebike . The car weighs 4100 kg and has a 213 kWh battery. The bike weighs 43 kg and has a 48 V × 17.5 Ah = 0.84 kWh battery. In this case, one car battery has as much capacity as 250 bike batteries. Every electric car manufactured takes away natural resources that could transport many more people on lighter vehicles.
Obviously heavier things require more energy to move. But why is that a bad thing when we have the energy and are capable of using it without emissions? Again, who is harmed?
And repairing/maintaining those things more often does require natural resources and creates emissions (and waste). It also takes money, which could be used towards other things like education, healthcare, or simply lower taxes if we didn't have to fix things as much.
The only ‘saviour’ from the environmental perspective is the introduction of electric platforms like Rivian. The thought of the battery market being further constrained by mall creepers terrifies me.