Really? Because the Chinese are mass producing electric cars.
In two generations they'll blow ICEs off the asphalt, as electric cars have much better acceleration, as batteries improve their range will reach and exceed ICEs and recharging times will decline.
There is a lot of room for technical improvement in electric cars, very little in ICEs.Like all new technologies, version 3.1 will be much better than the current 1.2.
And yes, what we do has a major impact, the Europeans are tightening their carbon market and will imposed tariffs based on carbon content on imports, which will force exporters to reduce their carbon footprints. We're still one of the top three carbon emitters in the world. If we were to follow the European lead, it would have a major impact worldwide.
We should be investing more into R&D and less into subsidies, the ideal would be to finance it with a carbon tax, which a true conservative would applaud, but there are no conservatives left in the Republican party.