Maybe if we had smartphones that emitted greenhouse and toxic gases by using a mini ICE engine that were so cheap nobody would buy anything else, we would subsidize the electric ones. We may even ban the gas phones.

We also wouldn't need to if environmental externalities were costed into petroleum prices.

ICE love is cultural, and there's a bunch of FUD from entrenched interests.

> we shouldn't have to subsidize electric cars either.

Smart phones were subsidised, just less obviously. Much of the fundamental research into the radio systems was done by government labs, for example.

Not to mention that governments provide maaaaasssive subsidies to the entire fossil fuel industry, including multi-trillion dollar wars in the middle east to control the oil!

Look at it from the perspective of pollution control in cities. China just invested tens of billions - maybe hundreds — into clearing out the smog they were notorious for. Electric vehicles are a part of the solution.

The alternative is everyone living a decade less because… the market forces will it.