As it stands, there’s two facts that stand out:

1. Currently, EVs are simply not efficient enough to completely replace gasoline/diesel powered engines. EVs currently account for around 7% of the US’ sales last year, making the total percentage of EVs used on the road somewhat less, when adding in used vehicles. The US electric grid doesn’t have the capacity to charge a 100% EV-powered nation; nor do we have the lithium reserves to mine and produce a single generation of EV batteries, let alone replace them (as the average EV battery has a lifespan between 10-20 years), making it a non-renewable long-term option. So far, the EV industry has kept itself alive (and I’ll let a bit of bias show here, fair enough) by catering itself to self-righteous Californian snots needing (yet another way) to virtue signal their gospel, while praying the tech powering their luxury toy will eventually catch up to its promises. Will it? Maybe. Currently, it has not.

Which brings us to the second inconvenient truth:

While the world may not ever completely “run out” of oil reserves, it -will- eventually deplete them to the point our current levels of demand will outpace the world’s supply, making it uneconomical for the average user to afford gas vehicles. The world’s militaries will hoard the remaining reserves; the rest of us peasants will be forced to do without.

So here’s my unpopular opinion: EVs aren’t likely to replace gasoline-powered before we reach the point gasoline becomes unaffordable for the average driver, and we’ll have a massive correction as a result. Simply put, there will be fewer drivers, and with fewer drivers, less tax revenue to preserve our already fragile road infrastructure. What does that mean for the US? Well, the average working-age person will be forced to either head into the cities and use public transit, or subsist out in the rural nether regions with limited access to the more densely populated areas. Basically, more of the same, actually. The key differences would be that the suburban edges of the cities will rot, as they were designed with car usage in mind; the inner cities would see significant overcrowding; and, not least importantly, the connections to, and through, the rural US will be starved of the tax revenue needed to maintain them, leading to a large-scale regression of road maintenance.

Why would I call this a Dark Ages-like era? To my eyes, it would certainly threaten to stifle access to critical infrastructure in the rural regions. We already tend to mock the country dwellers as uneducated, uncultured rednecks; now imagine what that would look like if they couldn’t travel, fewer opportunities to advance, and access to the broader world became even more limited? To summarize: more of the same, I guess.

What could an average person do to prepare against this eventuality? Well, not much, if I had to be dead honest. Live in a city that actually cares about its downtown and transit, I guess. Or live far out of the cities and accept the possibility that your access to things like roads, and Internet, and electricity, depend on resources to that might not exist for your area if scarcity becomes a problem.

So, that’s my unpopular opinion. EV tech has yet to prove it can replace combustion engines fast enough to prevent a future where cars become unavailable to us peasants. May the odds be ever in your favor.