"Cradle to grave" -- the environmental impact from production, through use, to disposal/recycling -- is what matters. It's significantly more harmful to the environment to produce EVs than ICE cars. Most seemingly credible studies I've read find that the crossover point at which an EV becomes better for the environment than a gasoline car is somewhere around 70k miles (more than many exotics ever reach). It varies, of course, with the cars, and it also, obviously, varies with the power source of the utility that charges the cars once they're in use. If it's coal, ICE are cleaner for a very long time and big mileages. If it's nuclear, it takes much fewer than 70k miles. EV production will get less harmful, but combustion engines also continue to get cleaner. Currently (no pun intended), a huge portion of materials and production comes from China -- the greatest polluter by far. An all-EV world would also make China extraordinarily politically powerful. I seems clear, also, that the electric infrastructure is nowhere near being able to cope with a country full of EVs. Again, I'm not opposed to EVs, but the massive push toward EVs only -- and the elimination of ICEs -- ignores very real and important considerations. We may get there, but the time frame doesn't make sense, nor does shifting energy dependence from the Middle East to China. Unless and until these issues are resolved, a combination of EVs and ICEs seems more sensible -- and not necessarily worse for our planet. And that's not because I find EVs sterile.

 

https://www.wsj.com/video/series/shi...9-8AD8598DEE5A

 

This is the only part of your comment with which I agree.

But we can't use that as an excuse to adopt EVs wholesale. I fail to see the wisdom in spending vast sums of money on a replacement which is at best a parallel technology with negligible gains in net effect on the environment, and deliberately brainwashing the public into thinking they are saving the planet. In fact, it seems like utter madness. If you have a suspicious and cynical mind, you might even say it's all a conspiracy to make a small number of people a whole lot of money. But then I am reminded of Hanlon's Razor: never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence (or in this case, ideology?)

 

Reminds me of this old video.

 

^^^ That is a classic.