Studies years ago had already pointed out that EV production involves more emissions, but over the lifetime of the vehicle it will pollute way less in the long run.  You can't cherry pick one aspect and conclude with that.<br><br>Mining in general is damaging to the environment, and digging up fossil fuel is no different, the main aspect here is that 1) if you drive a gas car, you'll need to keep drilling for the rest of the life of the car, while the batteries will last the lifetime of the car.  2) batteries can be recycled and the cost of obtaining the high quality lithium and nickel are way through recycling are cheaper than mining.  You can't do that with burning gas.  Do not ignore what companies like Redwood materials are doing.<br><br>It's important to point out the environmental impact of any type of mining, but framing it as EV being just as bad as driving a gas car is a message that big oil had been trying to make us believe, akin to the old days of paid doctors telling us that smoking isn't all that bad.  Don't fall for that trap.  Keep researching on who's doing what studies, and see what reputable sources such as universities are saying.  Nothing is clean, and even that cell phone in your hand also has cobalt in it.  You can't get away from polluting, but that cannot be the excuse to not be environmentally cautious and say "hey this is bad too, they are all bad, so nothing matters" and go back to the status quo, or worse yet, hinder the movement towards renewable energy.<br><br>People also tend to believe that car batteries will die and the car is gone.  That's true for some poorly designed EV such as the Nissan Leaf, but all the latest EV's are properly cooled and cars like the Tesla Model 3 had reported a 20% loss after 300,000 miles.  Having 260 miles of range left after 300k is no where a disposable situation.