Based upon the makeup of the grid in the United States, using an EV would be the equivalent of a 68 MPG car[1]. It will be a lot better than that if you live in a state that is 99% renewable like Vermont but even in the states with the least renewables like West Virgina it still won't be any worse than the average ICE[2].

[1] https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cl...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_electri...

I find that people like to think of this as a theoretical problem, when it is tractable to solve the bulk of it for a lot of folks. Thinking of the average price of a US vehicle $37k, here is what we did with that same amount:

Installed 9.4 kw of solar panels (32 panels) on our roof which generates the same amount as all of our electricity usage on an annualized basis for $24k. Bought a used Nissan leaf for $10k. Refuel at home, from the sky. No oil changes. Prepaid power for life.

I know a lot of people don't live in such a sunny state as Arizona but given that I live in Oregon they can take heart.

Then I got 11k back from state and federal subsidies.

I wish electricity and gas prices would go up, that's the only way to drive additional investment into a non stupid energy future.

I never figured out why the cobalt has to come from the Congo. There are cobalt mines in North America that are sitting idle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt,_Ontario

It's cheaper when you don't need to follow labor and environmental regulations.

Bingo, and when it becomes too expensive there, you just do your typical political corruption/bribery dance and get the rules to change here so you can continue to profit from environmental destruction.

Besides, warlords often want lots of Nickel and other metals for projects. The Cobalt is "waste product" from what they were going to be mining for in the first place.

A few news are hinting at rare earth free batteries. Also I'd bet a grand that the minute EV tech is just good enough the market will flip. It might also trigger some electric fad that will make people root for renewables, storage, even nuclear (granted the passive failure micro reactors can materialize)

The mix of power sources varies by state. In NY, Canadian hydro provides a lot of the electricity and coal virtually none.

When people say "haw haw, your electric car runs on coal", that might be true in West Virginia, but how many people have electric cars there anyway?

Lithium iron phosphate batteries don't use cobalt, and the chemistries that do use cobalt are using less and less.

Lithium ion manufacturing has been migrating from 6-2-2 (iirc that's 60% nickel, 20% magnesium, 20% cobalt) to 8-1-1, to 9-0.5-0.5, and so on.