Climate change mitigation strategies are often technology-oriented, and electric vehicles (EVs) are a good example of something believed to be a silver bullet. Here we show that current US policies are insufficient to remain within a sectoral CO₂ emission budget for light-duty vehicles, consistent with preventing more than 2 °C global warming, creating a mitigation gap of up to 19 GtCO₂ (28% of the projected 2015–2050 light-duty vehicle fleet emissions). Closing the mitigation gap solely with EVs would require more than 350 million on-road EVs (90% of the fleet), half of national electricity demand and excessive amounts of critical materials to be deployed in 2050. Improving average fuel consumption of conventional vehicles, with stringent standards and weight control, would reduce the requirement for alternative technologies, but is unlikely to fully bridge the mitigation gap. There is therefore a need for a wide range of policies that include measures to reduce vehicle ownership and usage.

缓解气候变化的策略通常以技术为导向，而电动汽车（EV）是被认为是灵丹妙药的一个很好的例子。在这里，我们表明，当前的美国政策不足以维持在轻型车辆的部门CO ₂排放预算之内，这与防止全球变暖超过2°C，造成了高达19 GtCO ₂的缓解差距（占2015-2050年预计轻型车队排放量的28％）。要缩小电动汽车的缓解差距，将需要超过3.5亿辆电动汽车（占车队的90％），占全国电力需求的一半以及到2050年要部署的关键材料过多。提高传统汽车的平均燃油消耗，具有严格的标准和重量控制，将减少对替代技术的需求，但不太可能完全弥合缓解差距。因此，需要广泛的政策，包括减少车辆拥有和使用的措施。