[ben_w]

I’m a lot more optimistic. The American idea of a compact car is the British idea of a big car (judging by labelled parking spaces in Davis CA), so that’s culture or fashion, and those can shift fast. And all the big companies are shifting to electric now, so even big isn’t as important.

Vat meat is starting to get on the market, and while we’ll have to wait and see if this is a iPhone moment or a Sinclair C5 moment, the prices have come down rapidly since the first attempts.

Flying is going to be a hard thing to totally green, but it’s not impossible either, merely low priority.

Yes, there will be those that reject everything — I’ve encountered those who think a self-driving car will take away their freedom, instead of regarding it as a chauffeur — but when the economics are against them, when they have to pay extra to be eco-unfriendly instead of paying less? History shows most people follow the money, not just for ill but also for good.

[nicbou]

But culture is heading the other direction in America. Cars get larger every year. Culture won't get us decent public transportation.

[ben_w]

You’d have to ditch low density housing to make public transport affordable.

But don’t be so hasty to dismiss culture as an opportunity: Musk turned electric cars from a joke into something the rich wanted to show off with.

[nicbou]

And the rest of the planet drives with internal combustion engines. The cars Germans replace with electric ones (or obsoletes due to emissions) are sent to other countries.