[mikeash]

In the US, coal power is under 40% of the total generation mix already, and dropping. My car emits less CO2 than a Prius, despite being way larger, heavier, and more powerful, and that will only get better as time goes on. It also emits zero local pollution, which is a pretty big deal.

How much longer do you want to wait? Electric is better now and just keeps improving. It takes a long time to change the makeup of the vehicle fleet (the average vehicle on US roads is over 11 years old) so if you wait until the grid is 100% squeaky clean before you start to make changes there, you'll have to wait much longer before you see benefits.

I do agree that it would be much better to just tax things to account for their externalities and let the market shake it out. But since that doesn't seem to happen much, we have to work with what we can get.