One other consideration to make, once EVs dominate the road space, in many countries, significant levels of tax revenue are generated through petrol receipts. This will no longer be the case and will probably require a move to road pricing.
This will probably be more than outweighed by the savings in public health due to less pollution. Air pollution kills and harms so many people every year.
Sure, but I have zero confidence that policymakers will look at it this way. We all know that budgets are largely non-transferable between departments, so just because we are spending less money on health issues I can guarantee no one will transfer this money over road maintenance. That's not how it works.
Nor should it work that way automatically, IMO. We need a certain amount to spend on X and an amount to spend on Y.
If X becomes cheaper, the right thing to do (IMO) is to return the savings to the people, not to spend the surplus on Y or find a new Z to spend it on. If the people want to choose to spend more on Y or Z now that they've seen the savings on X returned to them, that's perfectly rational possibility, but shouldn't be automatic.
