You don't trash perfectly operational cars, you sell them. The people who buy them are themselves replacing older, more worn out cars, which they in turn sell f

You don't trash perfectly operational cars, you sell them. The people who buy them are themselves replacing older, more worn out cars, which they in turn sell for a lower price. Thus it ripples down the line, with the net effect being an increase in supply in the used car market and therefore a reduction in price, which encourages people driving the very oldest, most worn out cars to scrap them and get something better. Those cars are probably not "perfectly operational", but falling to pieces, in constant need of spares and repair, and very likely less efficient. The running cost, and therefore almost certainly the environmental impact, of an old banger is higher than that of a new cars - and for the people driving them, the capital expense of a better car is likely a significant barrier, even though they'd save money in the longer term. So it's not clear that having the richest people upgrade to electric isn't a net positive all the same. tl;dr rich people upgrading to electric is like a privatized "cash for clunkers" scheme.