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They're not necessarily wrong, though. That battery will fail some day, and I can guarantee that it will lose its charge before the normal life expectancy of a car (15-20 years) is over. If they still make batteries in 10 years then perhaps Tesla will prove to be the more ecological of the bunch. However, when I look for the price of a new battery for the Roadster, all I can find is discussions about how there are no batteries available, and if they are, the batteries are the price of a new, normal car. For the Model S, the price is much lower (about $13k + labour) but according to news posts I've found from the beginning of 2019, Tesla has already discontinued the batteries for that model. For any car to be ecological, replacement parts need to be available for years after the original sales date. For most petrol-based cars, this has not been a problem, but for silicon valley company cars, this can be a dangerous pitfall. Batteries can suddenly fail, making the entire car worthless if there's no replacement available for a decent price. It's a cool, high-tech car for rich people, which is a perfectly valid reason to get one, but if it really is that ecological only remains to be seen. Of course, it's still far more ecological to buy a used gasoline car and drive that around for another ten years than it is to buy a new EV purely because of the pollution that comes with producing a new car. |
Longer term, I don't think that the economics of ICE cars will beat battery cars any more than the economics of horses beat cars. It is no more difficult to continue to make batteries available than transmissions.
We're still in the first decade of practical electric cars, and the 11th decade of ICE cars. It won't happen for a while.