Electric cars are extremely polluting, just not spread across where they drive, but manufacturing is insanely bad for the environment. Lithium and other rare earth metals are now much more expensive than they were a decade ago, so batteries are getting much more expensive, electric cars are going up in cost year over year. They’re also impossible to recycle and because of weight concerns contain a ton of plastic, carbon fiber and alloys that won’t ever get recycled.
Most electric energy comes from hydrocarbons and even though there has been massive deployment of wind and solar, even Germany can’t get that share beyond 15% of their total consumption, even though on paper, they should be able to produce 200% of their electric needs from renewable powered today (most of the energy gets produced when nobody needs it, so it is sold off at negative rates to neighboring countries, then they import coal and coal powered electric from Russia when they need it).
The load on the grid will require massive investments, charging stations that have 10-15 cars charging at a speed acceptable to people (<15 minutes) would require an entire 10kV electric power line dedicated to it.
The Chrysler minivan mentioned above has an MSRP of 53000 without any options and isn’t fully electric, it’s a hybrid. The regular minivan costs half that. No way you are pumping $20k worth of gas in 10 years even if electric and financing that amount up front were feasible and free (it isn’t). I spent at most $200/month ($2400/year) pre-COVID for 2 full-size cars (Luxury sedan and 3-row SUV), now its approximately half that.
If I were rich, sure, Id get a Tesla, but I just can’t afford it and prices aren’t pointing down by the time a mandate kicks in, it is estimated e-cars will be 30% more expensive by then and that isn’t even taking into account resource shortages and import issues (most of the resources mined come solely from China)
