The fact that we are still discussing ICE cars proves my poity. The first electric care was built 120 years ago and London had an Electric Bus company (!) in year 1903.
Yeah, we still use ICE cars, which unfortunate, but outside of greenhouse gases they're immensely less polluting than they used to be[0]. 1968->2010 reduced NO 99%, CO 95%, and particulate matter 99.92%. (I'm guessing this is looking at engines for PM. Tires/brakes still produce a lot, as I understand it.)
The EPA says tailpipe emissions are 98%-99% cleaner, with a 71% overall drop across "six common pollutants" despite miles traveled climbing 114%[1] (They use a few different starting and end points throughout that article.)
It's easy to miss how much cleaner modern cars are.
Two inventions were required for BEV's to compete with even 1920's ICE vehicles: the power MOSfet (1970's) and the Lithium-ion battery (1990's).
GM was about to put Lithium-ion batteries in the EV1 when the project was cancelled in 1999. It was less than 10 years later that Tesla introduced it's game changing Roadster. In between Toyota's Hybrid technology both helped and hurt EV development. It helped advance EV tech but reduced commercial and regulatory pressure for pure BEV's.
The first electric car is unrecognizable from a Tesla Model 3. It is not appropriate to compare them. To me, it sounds just like saying SpaceX and Starlink is fundamentally the same as an R7 + Sputnik. It's a narrow view of progress to ignore substantial incremental improvements over time. While you might not see big external differences between a 1980s car and a 2020 car, a number of engineering professionals working in different disciples would be incredibly impressed.
