Electric Vehicles

Why don't you tell me, since you seem to disagree with my "build mass transit before people can't get to work", and "let people build higher density housing near necessities".
All the "modern societies" I can think of opted to invest like that rather than exacerbating regressive tax schemes.

I never disagreed that higher gas prices gave an incentive. I disagree that that's the only incentive, or the best incentive. A regressive tax disproportionately impacts the people least likely to effect change. It doesn't matter how high prices get, the person making minimum wage can't afford a more efficient car.
High fuel prices are literally part of why someone who actively wants to flood the market with gas and penalize EVs was elected. If the effects of your solution are worse than the experience of the problem, people will attack the solution.

Pushing freight off the road still reduces gas consumption. A grant program to build bus routes to a minimum level of timeliness, service area and access would give people a viable option to actually not use cars in our existing cities.
Raising registration costs on low efficiency vehicles would let you push people away from them in a way people can budget for, while also making it possible to waive the fee for people who can't afford it.

You'll have to be more specific about which of my examples is too egregious for you. I think I only gave examples based on the actual weather and bus system where I live, and the actual business district where my doctors office is. Metropolitan area of about 500k.

Please don't tell me what I'm advocating for. You might disagree with me on what the impact of my plan would be, but that doesn't mean that I'm not actually wanting us to get to the same place you do.