sploo
Somewhat extinguished member
Yes; but the original assertion was that it could take 8 years for an EV to gain parity with an ICE vehicle in terms of pollution (if the EV is charged with "non green" sources). Given that's not an unreasonable life for a car it would appear that even in the worst case the EVs will be better (in the long run). Any charging via green sources will reduce the time it takes for the EV to "win".The only flaw in that is there no such thing as a Carbon free Source of electric. It's all smoke and mirrors!
Quite why us the question. To take power and wealth away from the Oil. To gain more control over the vehicle. Who knows, but EV's are something being pushed very hard and at a lot of expense (Subs of £5k, taxes breaks of the same or more. Ved breaks too). Not known anything quite like it except the vast amounts of money wasted on Space.
You are absolutely correct about nothing being totally carbon free; a solar panel, and wind turbine, wave generators etc all take resources to build. However for the larger commercial scale systems the upfront (pollution) cost is a relatively small negative, vs the long term benefits. That's not always true for smaller installations; I recall a small (~1.5m blade span) home wind turbine marketed some years ago where it turned out the lifespan of the unit wouldn't even allow it to recover its own carbon cost.
Modern solar panels (even for domestic use) are, I understand, good - in the sense that they should last long enough to more than offset their carbon cost.