> And both batteries and electricity production come with a huge environmental impact.
Batteries are compact, valuable objects that are used for years, then can be used in stationary applications for a few more years (so what if it has only 70% capacity - still plenty enough to serve as a network balancing battery) and then recycled.
And "environmental impact" of electric energy is several times lower than it could be if we used internal combustion engines for everything instead of centralizing them. ICE in cars have about 20-30% efficiency. Electric engines are over 90% efficient and big turbines in fossil-fuel based powerplants achieve 50-60% efficiency.
If we use the same amount of oil to drive a powerplant and then drive a car on that energy - it would drive almost twice as far as if you just used it to power a normal ICE car.
A lot of polluting industries have been moved overseas, recyclation of waste was in practice done by poorly paid third worlders, palm oil and wood from former pristine wilderness counts as "renewable", ugh. Germans dump their waste to Poland or Czechia to burn. Etc. etc.
And both batteries and electricity production come with a huge environmental impact. To sell electric cars as green plays into the already bad shortsightedness.
When capitalists do the same and mine some strip of land bare, they are rightfully pilloried and accused of reckless greed. But the same happens out of putatively good intentions and is nowhere near as criticized.