I'm in the jury still out camp. Many facets sure do seem to lead toward this platform not meeting the level of performance and/or level of positive effect for carbon neutrality. I can't speak to the veracity of the below TED Talk; if the speaker's data and conclusions are valid we have been misled down a path to literally move billions of dollars from one industry into another. Many politicians will see a windfall $$ in their investments.
I'm not saying this is accurate and true but we can still draw a logical inference. When Hillary was head of the State Department and Billy was getting 200-500k for "speeches" their close associate (Canadian billionaire mining investor) was close behind buying massive mining operations in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, etc... The end product sought were materials necessary for EV's. No fact to say there was a coordinated effort but there is enough for me to question when I'm told new math is 2+2=5.
For those of you who end up watching the linked TED Talk, the conclusion, if valid, is shocking.
I'm pretty much in agreement with the TED talk conclusions, hybrids and plugin hybrid should be getting equal incentives to electric vehicles, as liquid fuels are pretty handy and shouldn't be eliminated for quite a while yet, or not at all in some cases.
Combustion engines are getting more efficient, but batteries for electric vehicles should probably get most of the automotive R&D dollars moving forward. Most of us don't do that many miles a day and I think a lot of range issues have solutions possible with todays technology, or perhaps with another small step forward.
As the for "marketing" or promoting of EV's as zero emissions , I think there is a tendency to assume the general public has a grade 4 science and math level, and can't read more than a paragraph, or listen to a 20 second sound bite on an issue...
So I guess if you had to boil it down to that level,
EV's
GOOD! (and will be in a decade or two with better batteries and more nuclear and renewable energy)
Fossil fuel cars
BAD...
TBH, I think most of our planets technical and social challenges, need nuanced responses, but lots of people like to make a decision on an issue with 3 sentences of knowledge... Or enjoy their right to be ignorant on issues but still have a strong opinions on them, just based on their gut feel, or something their drunk uncle says...
