It’s fun to enthuse about a specific new vehicle, and discuss its merits and demerits, but the notion that the right way to direct the part of our economy devoted to transportation is for a govt agency or govt program, or a few individuals, to pick a winner based on the appeal to them of one option is nuts.
By far the most efficient way to wean our economy off energy sources from “people who don’t like us” is to tax them uniformly. So gradually and relentlessly increase the per-gallon tax on gasoline, diesel, and the other energy supplies from these nasty sources. Then millions of people in the economy will have a steady incentive to come up with many solutions that use less of those bad energy sources. We will all get to choose the best solutions for our needs based on the purchase price and running cost and reliability and spaciousness etc.
Doing things in a more centralized command-and-control way would be analogous to having Washington DC choose which kinds of bread will be offered in grocery stores. Of course we could, but why would we choose not to harness the ingenuity and industry and consumer preferences of hundreds of millions of people?
