Don't see where anyone mentioned the toxicity of manufacturing the batteries or the environmental impact on disposing of the used batteries. Or the need to build charging stations where little electricity is provided along rural roadways.
Many techs just move carbon footprint/environmental effects around depending on source of power to make the clean fuel.
Hydrogen for example is deemed the ultimate clean fuel, but the universe is mostly hydrogen and there is virtually none freely available on earth. You can make it from water, but need electricity. Sources of which each have their own footprints.
May be better to concentrate pollution at one location or not. Even many biofuels, ultimate source of energy = sun, cause lots of habitat destruction (palm oil) or agricultural related pollution (corn). Energy density of many bio crops is also problematic, amount of energy in a train car of coal much greater than for hays or wood.
Hydrogen fusion reactors maybe the best hope, but are at least decades away it appears and I do not remember any articles on foot print of materials needed to make them. Solar cells as an example, are often made from highly toxic metals like Cadmium. If room temperature superconducting magnetic are used as do not know what will need since they do not exist yet.
While is true that we often were just wrong about something like dumping mercury in rivers which was believed harmless, then found bacteria convert it to get soluble form, it seems we often ignore things we should consider from the start: if hydrogen were free, there are probably insufficient platinum metals to make them for all cars, we develop medicines too expensive for anyone to afford (last I heard prisons were only treating most seriously ill with Hep-C, waiting for rest to get worse, as cost of drug would be greater than entire prison budget for everything).
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