...a switch from petroleum to gas and coal.

On the PJM grid, my grid, the carbon intensity of an EV is higher than an internal combustion engine powered car if one includes embodied energy as I noted elsewhere in this forum citing a paper on the topic.

There isn't enough cobalt on the planet to replace all the internal combustion engine powered cars on this planet to EVs in any case.

The car CULTure is not sustainable under any conditions.

Drive by any train stations along the Northeast corridor. Their parking lots are packed with cars. They are usually along busy roads, away from most homes. Inside of a major city, you can walk, bike, or take public transportation. In the suburbs and rural areas, you have to drive. It would cost trillions to create a NYC-like transportation system everywhere. Even in NYC, lots of people still drive.

One can look it up.

I own a car, which makes me a hypocrite in this context, however, I recognize limits.

This said, the car CULTure is not sustainable in any form. The issue is physical much like mortality is physical.

The world will not behave in a way that bends to our convenience. In fact it's immediately clear that it isn't doing so. Instead it will behave according to the laws of physics and chemistry, and these do not depend on whether they are well liked laws or not. They exist independently of culture, always have, always will.

You're not even going to suggest we use "nuclear cars"?

A better answer is that we should encourage high-density urban housing and the idea of the "20 minute city" where all services can be reached in 20 minutes or less without a car. Supporting the use of hydrogen fuel cells and other hydrogen technology would also reduce the carbon impact of cars as a hydrogen market developed and could eventually be supported mainly by clean/renewable energy sources.

There was no point. Our family couldn't afford a second car and my dad was driving the one car to work. Before my parents were married and having children my mom lived in the city within walking distance of her work, grocery and department stores, etc.. If she wanted to go further she took the bus. When my parents bought their first house it was still within walking distance to grocery stores, pharmacies, etc.. The bus stop was two blocks away and the busses ran frequently. We also had a milkman who would deliver milk, eggs, bacon, and a few other items in the morning. My mom generally just got the milk because it came in heavy glass returnable bottles which were not the sort of thing you wanted to be carrying two and a half blocks from the grocery store and back. There were also bakery trucks and produce trucks that drove through the neighborhood on a regular schedule

My mom learned to drive after my grandparents gave her their old car and my parents bought a bigger house that was about a mile away from the grocery stores and bus stops. By that time cities and developers had mandated car-centric lifestyles for new housing, partly as a means of segregation.

Living without a car is still possible in some places. My nephew lives in San Francisco without a car. He rents cars when he actually needs them, a few times a year at most.

One has to ask, if living without a car is so undesirable, why are are housing costs so high in places you can comfortably do that?

If we truly wanted to solve this problem we'd be rebuilding all our cities, turning them into attractive affordable places where car ownership is unnecessary. In general, the people with the smallest environmental footprints live in cities and don't own cars.

I often resent the fact that I'm forced to own a car in this society if I'm to be considered a fully functional adult. Car culture is inherently fascist, the "freedom" they promise an illusion. If we were truly free we could choose to own a car or not enjoying similar opportunities for work, play, and education either way.

Helsinki has about 1/3 the population of metropolitan Seattle, where we live most of the time. It has about 3 times as much relative transportation infrastructure as Seattle, with about 10 modern commuter train lines, metro, trams, buses and ubiquitous wide asphalt pedestrian/bicycle sidewalks & trails. The bicycle lanes on wide sidewalks are also used by light electric scooters and robot delivery "boys". There are at least four really good grocery stores within easy walking distance from our apartment, many medical and dental services and everything else you need. Our neighborhood has nice parks, canals with foot bridges, and is introducing pneumatic garbage collection. When we return to Seattle it's hard to face the first required run to the grocery store - about 20 minutes car trip - through a hellscape of urban sprawl.