Correction accepted on brake wear. (I found a corroborating article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749123014021 )

As for declining battery weight, this article was based on how things are, not on how they are projected to be. There will always be rosy predictions, but until they're real we can't do the math with them. I'm old enough to remember the Jimmy Carter admin when it was predicted all cars would be getting at least 50mpg by now and we saw how that went.

Folks definitely buy more than what they need, for sure. In part because that's what's being sold to them. Americans believe a lot of things just because that's what the messaging/advertising tells them. A lot of beliefs and habits could shift with the right messaging, but it would need to be as powerful and effective as what the corporations are doing now.