And probably both of these can be explained largely by the fact that most of the energy intensive production happens now in Asia.
The US trade deficit with the rest of the world is only about 3% of gdp, that doesn’t buy much in the way of emissions.
I’d expect the US spends vastly more energy on transportation (individual vehicles) and housing (larger, more AC, etc)
Of course it is, if you have offshored energy-intensive industries.
Look at any device that had a lot of metal years ago.
The second part is phones have replaced a lot of people’s “stuff”. Young people prefer phones to cars even.
You can loads of “stuff” on your phone and it’s just software.
I mean, I probably do, too. I certainly use my phone much more often (I live in Berlin). But please, can we not make cars smartphones on wheels? I don't want to throw away my car after five years because the software is outdated, the CPU has become too weak and the battery is worn out. (Not a dig against electric cars, their batteries usually last much longer)
Cars don't have to be, nor (IMO) should be internet-connected. So if the CPU in the infotainment system was sufficient at launch, and there's no reason to update the (not-internet-connected) software, then the CPU will continue to be sufficient, and the software being out of date is irrelevant.
Not to defend the modern tablet-on-dash, internet-connected, reports-your-sexual-preference "car", just to point out that the transition to digital isn't, by itself, bad