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Thanks to the internet, teens don’t have to drive to a mall to buy sneakers, let alone anachronisms like CDs or video-game cartridges. In many places, it’s also more difficult and takes longer to get a license than it used to. But research clearly shows that the rise of alternative means of transport and concerns about climate change are encouraging young people to go car-free. 

As always, there are costs. A widespread shift away from private-car ownership will cost jobs in the automotive industries and their allied businesses, like gas stations. Technological and social changes of this magnitude always entail big economic dislocations. Think of all the blacksmiths and stablehands who lost their jobs when the car replaced the horse. Ideally, displaced autoworkers will find new jobs created by the Electro-Digital Age, such as installing and maintaining renewable-energy systems or repairing and recycling electronics. “These are jobs that can’t be offshored to China or Mexico or even done by robots,” writes Saul Griffith in Electrify. “These are jobs in every zip code in America. These are skilled blue- and white-collar jobs, the great majority in the trades—electrical, plumbing, and construction—that will pay well.” 

In any case, if such a shift really happens on a major scale, the auto industry will most likely shrink, not disappear. We will still need cars. And some people will just want cars, needed or not. That’s fine, especially if those cars are electric. If you want to live in a low-density exurb and get around in an SUV, that’s your right. That said, it’s well past time for car owners to start paying the real price for their vehicles. As it is today, every American taxpayer, regardless of how they get from place to place, helps foot the bill to keep motor vehicles moving. 

The rise of automobiles was supported at every step by lavish public subsidies. The industry would never have taken off were it not for the countless billions of dollars of government money that were poured into building America’s network of public roadways, including the vast interstate highway system. “Taxpayers subsidize motor vehicles with free parking spaces, roadwork, bridges, traffic enforcement, [and] environmental cleanup,” writes Peter Dauvergne in The Shadows of Consumption. He also estimates that the total cost of traffic accidents, “from medical treatment to insurance to disability to police and legal services,” exceeds $230 billion. 

Add to all that the stupendous costs of subsidizing the fuels that power internal combustion engines. The International Monetary Fund estimates the United States spent $649 billion in subsidies for fossil fuels in 2017 alone. Worldwide, the figure was $5.2 trillion. Americans can also add the staggering expense of military bases in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere, not to mention the occasional Middle Eastern war, as government spending intended to keep oil flowing. 

In principle, this kind of public financial support (excluding the military aspects) isn’t a bad thing. Pouring public money into a particular endeavor is not only sensible but crucial when the public’s safety, even survival, is at stake. We spent huge sums building electrical infrastructure in the 1920s. We spent countless billions developing a COVID-19 vaccine. Big subsidies to particular industries often make a lot of sense. Continuing to subsidize fossil fuels in a world imperiled by climate change, however, does not. 

To the contrary, we should impose additional taxes or charges on motor vehicles of all types, including electric ones, and use the revenue to support public transit and bicycle infrastructure. That’s a very tough sell to American voters, of course, particularly people living in rural areas who depend on their vehicles. Nonetheless, it’s common practice in many industrialized countries, which subject both fuel and cars themselves to higher taxes than in the United States. It’s certainly more fair. As it is, cars impose costs on all of us. Why not shift more of the burden of those costs onto those who choose to use the product? 

Excerpted from Chp 11 of Power Metal: The Race for the Resources that will shape the future by Vince Beiser.