That's half-true for the running costs (if you ignore material wear, like tires and stuff). But the manufacture of cars (and stuff in general) and the gathering of materials (read: mining) for that costs a lot of energy and, more importantly, causes a ton of other environmental impact.
> But the manufacture of cars (and stuff in general) and the gathering of materials (read: mining) for that costs a lot of energy
Is there a reason that a large part of that could not come from renewables ?
There is literally nothing that we can do with Gas/Oil that we cannot do with electricity, or by extension by converting that electricity in to solid fuels like hydrogen or Power-2-X.
Normally, by the laws of thermodynamics, you cannot extract more energy than you put in a system, but since the energy for renewables is from external sources (mostly derived by the sun/gravity), that means we can severely reduce our CO2 emissions, or even start extracting CO2 from the atmosphere.
1kg of hydrogen has about 36 kWh worth of energy in it, and it requires roughly 50kWh to produce it, which is a bad deal if those 50kWh comes from gas/oil/coal, but if instead they come from excess solar/wind/hydroelectric energy, you're essentially gaining 36 kWh worth of energy that would otherwise be "lost".