Not surprising. There has been a pretty successful campaign by the right to paint EVs as worse for the environment because we get our electricity from coal (we barely get anything from coal) and mining; more expensive to fuel up (using the highest priced fast charging vs lowest price of gas); and worse from a humanitarian perspective (cobalt mining).

Things to refute this: EVs, even with coal power as their energy source, emit less CO2 over the lifespan of the vehicle compared with gas vehicles. Mining sucks and is indeed environmentally damaging but oil is also fucking terrible. The benefit of EVs is that the vast majority of a battery can be recycled whereas oil is single use. So to meet a consistent demand, we do have to ramp up mining but once the demands is met, mining can be scaled back dramatically.

For fuel costs, it's easy to do the basic math but many don't. I've seen people complain that their electricity bill will just skyrocket. When I suggested my parents get a battery powered riding mower, my mom thought they would be more expensive and that the electricity bill would be just as much as the gas bill. The price of the mower is the same and the electricity cost was about 1/15th of what has is and you don't have to be riding around in gas fumes.

As for the humanitarian angle, the right obviously does not really give a shit. You could easily point out the atrocities that oil companies have done over the years. You could also point out that cobalt is being phased out. We could also do the mining here instead of having our done abroad. And there is the previous point that most of this just had to be done once then mining can be scaled back.

Hybrids actually have the best longevity and repair scores, however.

The longevity of the vehicle actually does count towards its ecological impact, because if you have to replace it sooner, you're creating a bigger ecological impact of creating a short-term use device before more energy has to be used to recycle parts of it.

So, at the moment hybrids win that battle. I think its simply because hybrids have been around longer, not because they're special. Give it about 10-15 more years and I think you'll see a flip to EVs taking over that spot from hybrids.

EDIT: Also, the bad build quality of Teslas and the early adopters of EVs mostly being Tesla owners also means that the sample of hybrids having better longevity and repair scores is impacted by Tesla specifically being so bad. If you cut out Teslas from the equation, I bet EVs and hybrids would probably have similar longevity and repair scores.

I was always under the impression that the source of the electricity to charge electric vehicles matters greatly. Some areas use coal burning to generate power while others use hydroelectric.

I've been wondering... Those batteries are really heavy and I've already had to explain to multiple customers that their ~1000kg heavier and ~100kw stronger engine (to get similar acceleration in a comparable model to the gas vehicle) is going to eat up tires twice as fast. If you were burning through a set of tires a year you better budget for two sets and the extra time to come in and have them changed every 6 months. And all those extra tires have to come from something. And shipped from somewhere. And then the roads need repaving more often because of both the extra weight and higher power output. 1000's of km of road that will have repaving works going on twice as often. On top of reduced traffic throughput while roadworks are ongoing, is any of that taken into account when comparing environmental impact? How will the increase in airborne particles and toxic runoff from the roads affect the environment?

IMO, I still think there's not enough infrastructure to support charging EVs. Don't get me wrong I've seen some. Just... Not a lot. Until charging is as prevalent as gas its just not worth it. Or if you have a house I guess.

In some areas I hear it's good. But in my area there's only 1 set of charging stations at a Wawa that I know of. And that Wawa is an hour drive away. Plus I'm at a rental complex that mows the lawns regularly and having a cable run from my house to the car is not allowed.

My current gas operated vehicle has about 160000 miles on it. I'm hopeful that my vehicle will last a long time. And then when my vehicle dies, I'll look at the infrastructure again and see if it's beneficial for me to switch to an EV. I'm going to continue to wait until it's beneficial for me to buy a new car.

We'll see how it goes.