I think you are all overestimating how many gas vehicles can be replaced, at least in the next couple of decades. EV sales currently make up 4% of American new passenger car sales. They make up a miniscule fraction of the extant car fleet, which now has an average lifespan of 12.5 years. So even if we were selling 100% EVs now, it would take 12 years or so before they made up even half the passenger car fleet.
And that’s just passenger cars. Light duty trucks are still almost 100% gas, and so are heavy trucks. Trucks have lot more use cases where electric simply doesn’t work. I say that as a huge fan of the new Ford Lightning. A Lightning, for exmple, has 230 miles of range in the standard model. In winter in northern regions, expect that to drop to 150 or so. Now throw a trailer on the back, and you are down to under 100 miles of range. Maybe 75 miles if it’s heavy.
All those bigger pickups out there like the F-350 are meant for serious weight hauling and gigantic trailer towing. The four wheels in the back are needed for the load. We’re not going to see those going electric in big numbers for a long time.
Lots of trucks are also used to drive to a job site, then are used on the job site all day to haul materials around, then driven home. Lots of job sites around here are more than 100 miles away.
The people who will buy electric trucks are peoole like in-city contractors, some farmers, people who like trucks but don’t put them to heavy use, etc. A foreman running building jobs in a city would be a good candidate. But there are many, many people who simply can’t or won’t buy an electric truck.
Then there is heavy machinery like tractors, road equipment, combines, excavators, etc. None of those are going to be electric powered in the near future - or at least not enough to matter.
In addition, the fleet of heavy equipment lasts a LONG time. There are plenty of farms around still using equipment from the 1950’s. I learned to drive a tractor on a 1939 crank-start Farmall, which was still in use in the 1980’s for light duty use around the farm. They are still being used today. Expensive heavy equipment lasts decades, and isn’t getting replaced in a few years.
And even given the very small percentage of electric vehicles being made, we are already running into shortages of batteries, rare earth elements, and other necessary components and minerals that are not just due to the current supply crisis.
Then we have infrastructure issues. Most neighborhoods cannot handle everyone having a level-2 or level-3 charger without serious upgrades to wiring and distribution. Many people in older parts of cities in smaller homes only have 60 amp services and cannot run a level 2 charger.
In addition, our foolish power infrastructure choices are goi;g to be causing grid issues with supply. California has already restricted car charging at certain times when the grid is strained. As more people buy electric cars, infrastructure issues could begin to dominate the discussion and limit the market.
We aren’t going to see gas pumps go away in our lifetime. What we will probably see is gas bars slowly removing extra pumps no longer needed and replacing rhem with electric chargers. So a gas bar that currently has 12 pumps might wind up with 4 pumps and spots for 8 EVs to charge, or something like that. But there will be gas available from pumps at gas stations for at least several more decades.
It’s still even possible that the tide will turn against EVs if we can’t get our power generation and infrastructure sorted out. Then they could become expensive options for the rich with good electrical aervice, and a luxury for everyone else.
It’s very early days yet for EVs.