The dutch 'culture' argument is common but ultimately rubbish. Take a look at them in the 70s, going the same way we were and there's even footage around of angry entitled motorists kicking over barriers of closed roads. Also utrecht is over 50% on more recent stats. The nationwide modeshare has been largely static as a result of cycling decreases in rural areas/suburbs offsetting the increases in cities, though as I said this is starting to reverse now with the combination of ebikes and rural infrastructure.
Regarding idealism/realism, at no point have I suggested that cars (in the form of EVs) won't remain a significant modeshare, indeed the average dutch resident travels slightly further by car on average than someone in GB does. There's also a difference between what is realistic and what this particular government will realistically do. I can argue for the former without expecting the latter
Presently we're roughly in this situation:
Car (ICE): very heavily subsidised (expect possibly on quiet rural roads)
Car (EV): ditto - somewhat lower externalities but offset by tax breaks/direct subsidies
Rail & Bus: moderately subsidised
Cycle (in all its variants): negative (largely due to health benefits reducing long term costs)
I really don't see any reason to be subsidising EVs when the same price differential effect can be achieved by charging & restricting the top one greater. Meanwhile investment should be aimed heavily in the bottom two. Road user charging would also be a significant help as this can better target where cars do the most damage (cities, over £1/km). This is something that has resurfaced as a concept again and I suspect it might actually gain some traction this time, not least because technology is in a far better place (few cars don't have GPS built in) and the treasury is acutely aware of the hole that fuel duty will leave.
That report seems to spend most of its time telling us how hard these things are to measure and uses words like "uncertain" quite a lot.
You are welcome to find an alternative, however this report is not out of line with other research in this area and the conclusions take into account the uncertainties. Should be noted that defra's emission factors reflect this also and as far as AQ models in the UK go, PM emissions of EVs are little better than E6 petrols.
ncutler wrote: It turns out that one really does use the brakes less.
I'm guessing you're not really a MGIF driver though! I think there's a risk here that EV early adopters are invested in it as more than just a car, a not indicative of the wider public. You're far more likely to explore and fully utilise the all the features rather than just treat it as something that gets you from a to b.
We can see this with increasingly widespread PHEVs, people have picked them up, partly tempted by the initial tax saving, and then can't be bothered to plug them in very much.