I had a "letter to the editor"

published in the paper the day before yesterday. Yesterday someone responded and criticised me for what I had said. You have to expect that when your write letters for publication like that.
The problem is that the writer had completely missed the point of what I was saying.
It is of course difficult to argue your case in a very limited number of words. The state newspaper likes short letters. They suggest that around 150 words is good but they will go higher - to around 350 if they think the topic is worthy of attention. Occasionally there will be a letter longer than that. Brevity though is the name of the game. Writing letters to the editor is quite unlike writing most letters. They are rather like writing letters to politicians and persons of importance. Yes, I have had more than a little experience of that.
So, this letter to the editor was about the Opposition Leader's pronouncement that, under his watch, 50%  of all vehicles on the road would be electric by 2030. They won't be of course. Downunder is too vast for that. People travel too far. People are not going to be prepared to wait even just thirty minutes to recharge the battery when they can "fill up" and leave in five. 
At the present time electric vehicles are much more expensive. I assume that the cost will drop as more people buy them. That should also bring manufacturing costs down. I have nothing against electric vehicles. They probably are the way of the future - in urban areas.
But, realistically, they have a long way to go in rural areas. The cost of the number of strategically placed charging stations which would be needed (and the maintenance of them) would be astronomical. Yes, you could have a charging station on the farm but will the combine harvester last all day? Now all the farmer has to do is take the fuel to the harvester and go on working. 
And of course there will be an increased demand for electricity - far more than what is currently estimated to be provided from renewable sources.
Is all this impossible? If I can think it then presumably it can happen.
But my letter suggested something else. It suggested that if we are actually going to meet any of the set targets then we need to change the way we live. 
I know when I go to do the weekly supermarket shop this morning I will pass cars parked on the road near the railway station. These will be people who did not get a park in the station car park. At least they will have used the train for part of their journey to work. They will have been passed by hundreds and thousands more people who will sit alone in the car they use to travel to work. That car will then sit in a carpark all day. At night the driver will once again, and alone, do the return journey. 
The cost is high but they look on it as more "convenient" than public transport. I know people who live within fifty metres of a bus that would take them almost past their workplace but they choose to drive to work.
That is one of the things that needs to change if we want to combat the problems associated not just with climate change but higher density living. We simply can't afford to allow people who have the capacity to use other means of transport to go about alone in steel  cages. 
And this isn't just for reasons associated with the environment. Our current love affair with the car has had a negative impact on our mental and physical health. Add to that the increased automation of the workplace, the capacity for some people to do increasing amounts of work from home, the increased time spent staring at screens for entertainment and more and we are growing more isolated from each other. 
Of course cars are sometimes essential. They are also essential for some people, particularly those who would otherwise find it difficult to move about.  We need to be aware though and not be led to believe that a shift to electric cars is the answer, or even part of the answer, to a problem which needs to be rethought and which will involve other changes to the way in which we live. 
Or have I got this all wrong?