What's missing is the true environmental impact of EV's. Three issues that are completely overlooked: environmental damage from lithium and cobalt extraction/production (everyone just talks about disposal); other environmental impacts such as increased acid rain; and,
the substantial increase in carbon emissions from all the coal necessary to fuel the charging network for EV's.
From the
MIT Technology Review:
A 2007 study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that without adding a new plant or transmission line, the U.S. grid could reliably charge 84 percent of the nation’s cars, pickups, and SUVs.
That continues to hold true, but does require managing the grid in more efficient ways, says Michael Kintner-Meyer, a co-author of that study. Notably, utilities will need to employ price incentives or technological tools to ensure EV owners are charging their battery packs during the night—rather than, say, all at once after work.
That load balancing, however, raises an interesting issue: In much of the country, the cheap, flexible power sources at night are often coal-fired power plants. That means you could actually end up with higher greenhouse emissions from a particularly dirty energy source, Carnegie Mellon’s Michalek notes.
And,
The vehicles will only be as clean as the power sources used to charge them, and more than 80 percent of U.S. energy generation still comes from fossil fuels.
I've seen several other references to the same issue. Until credible research organizations (like MIT or any of the other Top 35 Universities) actually give a thorough assessment of the entire environmental picture associated with EV's, as a society we're insane to be blindly pursuing the dream of Hamlin’s Wizard Oil Company as presented by Elon Musk.