I agree to a point. Until the day that all the electricity used to power EVs comes from renewables all you are doing is moving the point of pollution from the exhaust pipe to a power station somewhere. That said, the fuels used to power an ICE are far more polluting than those we use to general electricity and an EV motor is about 95% efficient compared to and ICE which is about 35% efficient.
Again you're only considering the motive energy source...what about the energy required to mine the raw materials, transport everything around the world, manufacture the component parts, transport them around the world, assemble the car, ship the car etc. ICE cars have a global integrated supply chain system that is unbelievably efficient. EV's have a long way to go until the entire supply chain network is anywhere as near as established or energy efficient as a typical ICE car. EV's don't move the needle at all regarding overall cradle to grave energy requirements and CO2 emissions...all you're doing is moving the points of pollution away from point of driving them to other parts of the life cycle - and actually increasing CO2 emissions as you're accelerating the early scrapping of perfectly reliable and efficient ICE cars and creating the demand for new EV's and alll the additional CO2 emissions created from their production. But still, people feel better about themselves for driving them even if they're not actually doing anything to reduce total CO2 emissions.
True that EVs are alot more efficient, but in reality this is more than offset by EV's ultimate achilles heal: battery energy density. So about 7.5 litres of diesel contains the same energy as a Tesla Model Y battery...so the inefficiencies of ICE engines are easily accommodated and far more convenient thanks to the energy density of fossil fuels - a typical family cars tank of diesel contains around 650kwh of energy vs a Tesla battery at around 75kwh - Meaning a range of 550 - 600 miles per tank to 280 - 300 miles per charge.
Deisel in a car fuel tank weighs about 65kg vs a Tesla battery weighs in at around 770kg
volume of a car fuel tank is around 0.065m^3 vs. a Tesla battery volume at around 1.5m^3
OK with an EV you're losing the volume and weight of engine and transmission with a couple of electric motors being around 50% lighter...but a Tesla still comes in around the same kerb weight as a similar ICE car.
I actually drive a Tesla Model Y and find it fine. I'm not driving it to save the planet...I'm not that gullible, but so far have not found running it an inconvenience at all for the kind of driving I do. It has more than enough range so I rarely have to charge when out and about...literally 2 or 3 journeys a year I'll have to plan a charge stop en-route. It's cheaper to run than my previous car (mainly due to beneficial tax avoidance mechanisms), cheaper to maintain, drives perfectly well...it's just a car and does what it says on the tin. The main environmental benefit I see with EV's is nothing to do with CO2 emissions, but avoiding general emissions that worsen air quality in towns and cities which are actually causing or contributing to deaths today due to worsening health of people from poor air quality.
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