A good point, but thinking on the marginal transactional costs to process a sale of additional items after one, people deliberately buying two items to 'stick it' to the business and get maybe 5 cents off their purchase is actually benefitting the business, and the customer spending more time figuring out the exact cost before checking out than the five cents are worth.
Basically, I figure that the business could outright discount every item after the first by 5 cents, and still profit more per item when people are buying 3-4 items at a time rather than one.

I doubt that, especially with varying sales taxes screwing with things.
The draw to price everything in .99 is too high. Or even .95 or .97.

A lot of studies of paper vs plastic bills are looking at paper bills using scrap cotton and linen fibers and still having wood pulp.
US bills use the premium stuff and are 0% wood pulp. As a result, our paper money lasts as long on average as the plastic bills.
The math changes when one considers that we don't have to import our fibers into the country and can thus get the good stuff for less than other countries pay for scrap.

Odds are if you really push it just sounds an obnoxious alarm while letting you out. Kind of like pushing against the gates at my walmart to go out the entrance area rather than the checkouts.
I just give zero hoots and do it anyways.

I'd argue that it is still a factor.
Not a lot of convertibles in Alaska.

And there are vehicles up there that, despite being all ICE, that work better or worse to the point that yes, it is an issue.

Then keep in mind that we're still effectively with the "first year" models. Odds are the underperforming companies will fix their performance sooner or later, or get outcompeted by those that do.

Real world testing gives a wide variety of range reduction in cold weather, depending on the make and model of EV. Some are really good at maintaining range, some are lousy at it.
In any case, preheating the cabin and battery cuts that substantially, and you generally don't need to keep warming the battery while driving as the regular discharge and charging from regenerative braking keeps the battery at operating temperature to limit range loss.
It's a contribution, but it isn't something like 30% is what he's getting at. More likely ~5%.

That skill proved useful in his later career.

That doesn't change that if you're looking at comparative advantage - most CO2 saved for a given amount of battery, for example, delivery vans are an obvious pick before the EV freight trucks.
Though even with the freight trucks, one could concentrate on local delivery routes before longer haul ones to maximize savings.

NYC: 8.5M
LA: 3.9M
Chicago: 2.7M
Total: 15.1M
Population USA: 342M
1 in 22.6 people live in those 3 cities.
On the other hand, if we include the "metro area" and not just city proper:

NYC Metro: 19.9M
LA Metro: 12.8M
Chicago Metro: 10.1M
Total: 42.8M, 1 in 8 people.

The math checks out if one uses metro instead of actual city. Basically, "metro" areas include the suburbs where many would commute into the city to work.

On the topic of electric vans, they would still totally work for deliveries through the metro area, not just the city core.

That's my opinion too.

Unfortunately, after a certain amount of actual progress we are now regressing again.

Yeah, we have a long history of not practicing what we preach.

Remember when the USA took pride in being a melting pot?

Making turbine blades, whether for plane engines or fixed power, is one of those fantastically expensive and complicated processes that we don't really build excess capability for it.
So any serious increase in demand first requires building more manufacturing capacity, whether that be in the USA, China, or elsewhere.
And the manufacturing equipment alone demands like a year's lead.

They've even developed 'gas' turbines that can use finely powdered coal as fuel.
But the efficiency of a combined cycle natural gas plant combined with the cleaner fuel makes emissions so much easier to meet, it isn't used much.

The jet engines on the market aren't designed for fixed location electricity generation. It's like looking at taking a diesel out of a clapped out semi to use as a generator. More work than it is worth to convert.