The counterpoint is that Telsa managed to emerge from nothing in that time. Incumbent ICE car companies had no incentive to start the transition so it's necessary to introduce an artificial constraint.
US has 800 cars per 1000 people, but Italy and Spain have 650/1000 and even Poland, which is significantly poorer than US, has over 700 cars per 1000 people. In Europe, car ownership is only slightly less of a necessity than it is in the US, and I think if you look at the data that measure cars not per capita, but per household, the gap in car ownership between US and European countries would be even smaller.
I just opened up google maps, picked out two random small towns in Germany, and the driving distance between them is 200km/2hrs, while the transit length is 3hrs (with a transfer in a major city). Doing the same in the Northeast, one of the best areas for transit in the US, resulted in two towns 120miles/2hrs drive distance, and 18hr/6 transfers transit distance. So yes, a car is more convenient in both cases, but transit is a competent alternative (which is what I said). France and Italy had comparable results to Germany, Spain did not. Germany, France, and Italy makes up roughly half of the EU population (add in Belgium or the Netherlands if you wanna be precise, they've got decent transit too).
> US has 800 cars per 1000 people, but Italy and Spain have 650/1000 and even Poland, which is significantly poorer than US, has over 700 cars per 1000
You appear to have taken this article [1], and picked out the top three EU countries.
> In Europe, car ownership is only slightly less of a necessity than it is in the US, and I think if you look at the data that measure cars not per capita, but per household, the gap in car ownership between US and European countries would be even smaller.
"Owning a car" is not the same metric as "Needing to own a car to do literally anything because there are no alternatives". Germany, France, and Italy all rank higher than the US in annual passenger-km's of rail travel, despite each having populations 1/5th to 1/4th the size of the US[2]. Or look up modal share by country for other info - there's no handy Wikipedia summary, unfortunately, but for example, Germany is about 30% transit commutes.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag...
Now add the time it takes you to walk to the transit stop (rail station), the time to wait for the train/bus (remember, if you were driving, you could have departed immediately), and time to walk to your actual destination at the city you're going to. In practice, door-to-door trip using public transportation will almost always take twice as long as driving, unless you're lucky and have a non-stop train/bus that departs from right in front of your home and gets you right in front where you want to be. Of course, you also need to be on train's schedule, not your own, and that having 2-3 transfers each way is exhausting and annoying.
> transit is a competent alternative (which is what I said).
If your time is worthless, that is. That's why these trains and buses are usually packed with students and retirees.
> You appear to have taken this article [1], and picked out the top three EU countries.
And your point is? These countries are more representative of Europe at large, not two of the wealthiest places there.
> "Owning a car" is not the same metric as "Needing to own a car to do literally anything because there are no alternatives".
Alas, "owning a car" is very much the relevant metric in this discussion, which, allow me to remind you, was about how it is more difficult for Europeans to afford the car than it is to Americans.
And yes, there’s biking, but doing that while it’s raining is a complete different story.
What we need is lots of small and cheap cars that can be built easily and on a massive scale. Something akin to the original Volkswagen, or an automobile equivalent of the liberty ships.
Or even better, more public transport, and more remote work.