You are not wrong. But the sub title of the article is: "Experts say that across the board, EVs are a win compared to similar gas-powered vehicles."
Whether you look at manufacturing, sourcing of battery materials (which get recycled), energy production needed to power the vehicles, it all boils down to EVs being far better than gas powered vehicles.
Why is that? Kwh for kwh, EVs are just far more frugal with the energy. Petrol contains lots of energy, most of that is converted into vibrations, heat, noise, etc. And a little of it propels the vehicle forward. EVs produce a bit of heat, very little noise (tire friction mostly), and convert most of their power into forward motion and can actually recover some of the energy when you slow down through regenerative breaking.
Even if you use brown coal, which is a nasty fuel, to power an electricity plant, about half of it turns into energy and most of that ends up being used for useful things by the car. It gets more miles per kwh worth of CO2 emitted relative to ice vehicles. If you add the emissions needed to produce the vehicle (which you'd also have to do for an ICE car), it boils down to any difference being eliminated by this within 1 or 2 years of the vehicle hitting the road. Even if it is a bit more co2 emissions to produce the vehicle (which is debatable), the difference is wiped out early in the life of the vehicle by it just being more efficient. After that every year the vehicle manages to not break down, which as it turns out is mostly quite long, it just gets better.
Why is this important? One of the many myths that people keep rehashing, is that EVs are more polluting than gas guzzlers. This article attempts to rectify that. Of course, there's a lot of good work being done in the EV industry to improve things further. Cheaper batteries with less exotic metals, more efficient motors without rare earths, recycled materials, using renewables to power rapid chargers, etc. But even without all that, EVs are already cleaner.
Whether you look at manufacturing, sourcing of battery materials (which get recycled), energy production needed to power the vehicles, it all boils down to EVs being far better than gas powered vehicles.
Why is that? Kwh for kwh, EVs are just far more frugal with the energy. Petrol contains lots of energy, most of that is converted into vibrations, heat, noise, etc. And a little of it propels the vehicle forward. EVs produce a bit of heat, very little noise (tire friction mostly), and convert most of their power into forward motion and can actually recover some of the energy when you slow down through regenerative breaking.
Even if you use brown coal, which is a nasty fuel, to power an electricity plant, about half of it turns into energy and most of that ends up being used for useful things by the car. It gets more miles per kwh worth of CO2 emitted relative to ice vehicles. If you add the emissions needed to produce the vehicle (which you'd also have to do for an ICE car), it boils down to any difference being eliminated by this within 1 or 2 years of the vehicle hitting the road. Even if it is a bit more co2 emissions to produce the vehicle (which is debatable), the difference is wiped out early in the life of the vehicle by it just being more efficient. After that every year the vehicle manages to not break down, which as it turns out is mostly quite long, it just gets better.
Why is this important? One of the many myths that people keep rehashing, is that EVs are more polluting than gas guzzlers. This article attempts to rectify that. Of course, there's a lot of good work being done in the EV industry to improve things further. Cheaper batteries with less exotic metals, more efficient motors without rare earths, recycled materials, using renewables to power rapid chargers, etc. But even without all that, EVs are already cleaner.