But what about the lithium mining and the effects there to say nothing of disposal of used batteries? No one mentions that side of EV vehicles.
Those things get mentioned a lot but usually by the uninformed spreading myths.
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Everyone with an anti-EV agenda mentions it, usually from a position of ignorance, and ignores the environmental costs of recovering and refining hydrocarbons before a single one is even burnt, not least the rare earths used in the production of internal combustion vehicles.
Batteries can be reused (for example to store low cost off-peak or solar energy to then use at peak times) and recycled to recover the materials.
Sure, EVs aren’t a panacea but, over their lifecycle, the environmental damage is much less than that of an ICE equivalent.
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I have no doubt that before battery power came along all the EV evangelists were confirmed petrol heads without a thought of what we are told is accelerating the planet towards armageddon.
I am happy to continue running my diesel vehicles until they expire safe in the knowledge that ditching them now to replace with EV will do more damage by feeding the EV manufacturers pockets.
I was the same. The longest I could manage was about an hour, and then it would take a good few minutes to get things moving again.
Since the hip replacement I can now drive for as long as I wish - potentially 12 hours between refueling stops 
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My hip replacement is now 18 years old and behaves perfectly
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Hip hip hooray!
Here follows my standard response for those who believe all the negative nonsense pedalled by the fossil fuel lobby…read this link to the facts before repeating tired old tropes.
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The issue of expired EV batteries is a real one though - I have no quibble with the claim that EV batteries can be recycled with great efficiencey - but the real questions is are they currently recycled in practice and will they be in future.
There are some positive signs - an industry is slowly growing up around fixing batteries internally, replacing cells or packs etc but my great fear is that it will end up a bit like the recycling of electronics.
That is: ship somewhere with low environmental standards, remove the few useful chips, grind the rest down, extract the small %age of valuable materials (mainly gold) and then dump the whole toxic residue (made more so by the process of extracting gold etc) in a pile and ignore it while it leaches noxious chemicals into the surroundings.
There are plants dotted around especially Germany being very industrial that are pretty much idle because batteries are lasting longer, doubt they will be shipped off to far flung places as the contents are too valuable whereas the tiny amount of gold from circuits is not commercial enough.
Depends how you look at it - as “ore” goes, ground up circuit boards have quite a high concentration of gold. They also have copper - I don’t know how much of that is recovered, if any.
To an extent, the cheapest and greenest car is the one that you already have but I do get tired of this anti-EV trope, just buy the car that suits your driving needs and go with it.
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There was a chap in Crystal Palace whi became a multi millionaire from buying up old computers and getting the scrap but it was years ago when circuits and ic’s had a lot more gold in them.
The big thing is that they are rarely ‘expired’, just have lost sufficient capacity for sensible road use.
Along with many others I’d jump at the opportunity to acquire a load of, say, 70% capacity EV batteries as I would then use them for home energy storage. This is where the market is going i.e. it’s should be a long time before an EV battery produced today will get anywhere near being a recycling problem.
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Ditto the pro-EV trope.
Less willie waving by a few and an acceptance that it will take many years before the fossil fuels we have used for generations will gradually disappear by which time a fuel other than electric may well be ruling the roost.
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That’s the point of view I adopted about seven years ago. I really like my elderly Golf and am in no hurry to change it and during that time I’ve always said that when it becomes uneconomical to run I will swap it for an EV. Part of that is because I am concerned about the environment and while accepting that any changes on my part will be a tiny drop in the ocean I’d rather move that way than the other. The trouble is that the Golf keeps going and during those seven years I’ve had more first hand experience of EVs and I like what I’ve discovered. A quiet car that needs less maintenance than mine that is easy to top up to 100% range at home, what’s not to like except the price. The Renault 5 might be a temptation too far. I’m not interested in other people telling me that there are more efficient, more comfortable, better equipped alternatives, I’ve gone through my whole life buying cars with my heart not my head and I’m not going to stop now. Time will tell but the time for change might not be too far away.
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In my case John, you are exactly right. I also used to drive like an idiot and only my superb driving skills extricated me from perilous near misses. Then I started to grow up and learn that only my imbecilic driving put me in those positions in the first place. Similarly, I have learnt about the now avoidable damage caused by combustion engines and I have changed as I have become more informed.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently made the announcement that Earth is moving even closer to destruction, as it advanced its famous “Doomsday Clock” to 89 seconds till midnight, the closest it has ever been.
You can lead a fool to knowledge but you can’t make him think.
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If that is a reference to the use of hydrogen then I must gently point you at the info I linked to above.
The beauty of electrical power is that it can be obtained from a large array of sources, some of which use free primary energy. This is exactly what the fossil fuel barons fear most, & by extension, future hydrogen producing barons.
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Indeed, where it is a touch evangelical. It’s possible to be pro something without dismissing that it doesn’t suit everyone’s way of life.
Lithium is only one step on the road to fully sustainable battery construction using more environmentally friendly materials., but even so, once lithium is mined it can be recycled in replacement batteries.
My ambition is to have solar panels generating pollution free electricity which is stored in batteries recycled from EV use.
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