I don't know where you get the math on vehicle numbers, but I believe there will be under 1B ICE vehicles by 2030 and what ICE vehicles remain will have higher CAFE requirements.
I don't know either, the internet. IEA website and some green site talking in-depth about electric car and total car growth. Doubling of cars on the road by 2030 to 2035 sounded high to me too, but who knows? maybe. It seemed like all the high estimates had maximum 300M electric cars by 2035, 100-200M more likely. Tons of unknowns for production growth ability in the coming years. What's desire and what's reality?
My interest is on the demand side, and maybe it's Canada biased, Alberta biased especially, but I don't see the demand for EVs if gas works just fine and not only that but gas has improved a lot in 10 years, and will keep improving.
Turbo engines are more efficient and faster than ever so that people buying new will already be impressed with the improvements over their old vehicle. The EV improvement over that is incremental and even "too much" for people. Going from a big engine car to a turbo 4-cylinder SUV is one step, from a turbo 4 to a hybrid, then a hybrid to an EV. Most consumers will want to take these steps and they each take 10 years.
Genuine environment enthusiasts and climate change worriers are not in the car market. All cars are bad for the environment. Those people walk and ride bikes, and if they really need a car it's a 15 year old Honda Civic. I don't see a bigger societal desire for environmental consideration being associated with increased EV and car use. They're only loosely related for the headlines and government talking points during elections.
I think your main point though is that the demand side doesn't matter so much because either way EVs are going to be crammed down our throats by governments hostile to the will of the consumer and the taxpayer? Maybe. But there's no reason that governments can't go about throwing away trillions of dollars on EV infrastructure and subsidies and making grand proclamations to manufactures that end up having no teeth, while simultaneously having the regular car industry keep ticking away as usual while all the EV programs expand but remain unprofitable as ever, and continue-on being underutilized boondoggles, especially the government power generation side, for decades to come.
Why not? We can definitely have both things occur. Tons and tons of ineffective EV related investment of tax-payer dollars that completely goes to waste but is celebrated as a huge success, and regular gas vehicle transportation carrying on.
