Most of those eventual transitions were fueled by the abundance of cheap energy, either in the form of abundantnaturalresources, slave labor, or the advent of fossil fuel beginning with coal in the British Empire after 1850.
The environment and the country would be better off if electric powered cars and trucks dominated the roads, driving down the use of costly imported fossil fuel and making the U.S. depend more on abundantnatural gas and other energy resourcesin the country.