How is a tax break an expense? Not sure I follow what you're saying there. I paid $38k for my Tesla a year ago. Just got back $7,500 in cash from my taxes this week. Had I elected to put that towards the cost of the car it would have been a $31k car.
The cost of ownership for my EV is really not that bad at all. The biggest X factor for people is going to be the cost of home charging as that will vary from situation to situation. Some people may already have a 220 outlet in their garage and its a total non issue, some it's going to be a pretty minor expense, this was my experience. For some it's a major hassle that will set them back thousands of dollars and that's an issue. Aside from that I have no real maintenance costs as there is no engine or transmission to tend to. I get my tires rotated every now and then and top off the washer fluid. That's pretty much it. I paid $60 for insurance last month, which is full coverage. I also calculated it out based on what my local eclectic company charges in kWh and it takes about $6-7 bucks to recharge my car if it's completely empty. As far as the carbon footprint people need to do their research and figure out what the bigger issue is. Is the carbon footprint greater from gas vehicles or from the combination of lithium mining, electrical use, and battery disposal? It's a complicated answer that in its current form really comes back to how long an individual EV lasts from my research. In my decision to buy an EV though it was not even a thought that crossed my mind when I purchased it, and I would assume that for the vast number of EV buyers it's not even a consideration either. It has way more to do with have a really fun car to drive, never having to worry about leaving the house early in the morning because I need to get gas before work, super convenient, minimal maintenance, loaded with technology, great warranties, etc. There are absolutely some negatives, but that's everything in life.
You're absolutely right that 92% of car sales are still gas or hybrid. But go back to just 2019 and that was 99% of sales.
EV sales went from
2019 - roughly 1% of sales (I saw a couple different numbers here but they were both in the ball park)
2020 - 1.7%
2021 - 3%
2022 - 5.8%
2023 - 7.6%
Not that hard to figure out where this is all going. Percentage of EVs sold is going up a couple percentage points every year. Right now it's more linear growth, but I have to believe at some point you see larger jumps in these numbers made as EVs become more normalized. They are dropping in price every year. Public charging is more accessible every year. More homes are getting EV stations installed in their homes, and new construction homes are having them built in. Even apartment complexes are starting to have stations added to offer to renters.
