[maccam94]

Except lithium ion batteries are very recyclable, and rare earth elements aren't in limited supply, they're just usually very sparsely distributed.

[justasimpleman]

Wear from car tires cause the majority of microplastics that get into the seas (around 50%, if I'm reading understanding this study correctly):

http://epanet.pbe.eea.europa.eu/ad-hoc-meetings/workshop-pla...

[justasimpleman]

At least in 1st world countries. The contribution of those are rather small compared to China and India.

WorldBank Pollution data: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/en.atm.pm25.mc.m3?end=2...

Maplecroft Deforestation Risk 2018 (as opposed to his 2012): https://www.maplecroft.com/insights/analysis/esg-deforestati...

Statista Countries Polluting Oceans (updated version of his): https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting...

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/05/1818859116

[justasimpleman]

Also, manufacturing and charging li-io batteries for cars currently still produces more CO2 than petrol vehicles:

https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/lithium-bat...

[calaphos]

The biggest problem with cars, at least in European cities is the amount of space they take. Despite rising rents, making some cities unaffordable for people working there, we still mandate parking spaces for every build flat and use large amounts of space for multi lane roads, tolerating emissions, noise etc. Electric cars don't solve most of that. Making it easier to live in cities without owning a car should be the focus, not electric cars

[fulafel]

I think the industrial scale, cost efficient recycling bit is untried, and we don't know if it will come to wide use soon enough to help with co2 footprint of cars?