I agree that neither pollution should be discounted -- but they should be evaluated fairly. I'm reading through your recent links, but they don't seem to be doing side-by-side comparison. An EV battery is good for 100k to 200k miles -- which is the equivalent of 4000 to 8000 gallons of gasoline, or about 200 to 400 barrels of crude oil. So the question is:
1) What is the damage from drilling, refining, and then burning the gasoline from 300 barrels of crude oil?
2) What is the damage from mining the materials and manufacturing one EV battery?
I don't have exact answers for these. Battery manufacture produces toxic material, but it's a question of how much is produced and how much of that will get into people's bodies -- compared to breathing in output from car exhaust like carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, and particulates.
I do know that around 5 million people a year have early deaths from air pollution. How many would you guess have early deaths every year from battery waste? I'm skeptical that it is anywhere close to 5 million. You can say "battery waste is toxic" but that's like saying "nuclear waste is toxic". It's technically true, but nuclear waste is relatively tiny and extremely well-handled -- particularly when compared to dumping toxins directly into the air that people breath.
So the water pollution from mining the lithium doesn't count? https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1399997488/photo/greenbushes-lithium-mine.webp?b=1&s=170667a&w=0&k=20&c=_pJKX6mjys2DVjDsFz7smuxqiYFHDFXykI4LWfJLBWc=
ALL the air pollution from the mining, shipping the Lithium to China doesn't count?
All the air pollution from the manufacturing of the batteries in China doesn't count?
All the air pollution from shipping those batteries to the US?
What about the air pollution from manufacturing and shipping the EVs to the US?
What about the air pollution from producing the electricity to charge the batteries?
You KNOW I live in México City right?
GeekyBugle, how is this disagreeing with anything I said? Yes, everything should be counted, both for EVs and for gasoline cars. So it counts the pollution from mining for material for the gasoline car, shipping the gasoline car, running the refineries, shipping the gasoline to the gas stations, etc. Here's one analysis of both for several different options for lifetime emissions, for example:
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/2228291Browsing, most other estimates are similar. The lifetime emissions can range from 20% less to 60% less than a gasoline car, depending on how its made and especially on what source you're charging it from.
Living in México City, I can see that would make you mad about air pollution. From what I read, it does seem to be getting better than in the 1990s, but it's still bad - especially NO2 and particulates. Here's the graph I'm looking at:
Source:
https://thecityfix.com/blog/expanding-mexico-citys-air-quality-forecast-to-help-citizens-live-more-healthy-lives/What do you think should be done to help clean it up further?