The argument I hear on occasion is that appropriate use of sports cars (i.e. actual sport use) can be regulated to use synthetic fuels as the amount of fuel required is relativity small, and sports car owners/operators are generally wealthy enough to pay for the more expensive fuel (and willing to do so to keep their hobby/passion intact).
Koenigsegg with their hybrid powertrains makes that argument now and then and points out the parts of the perf spectrum/application space better served by the ICE due to the energy density of the fuel and what it does for weight.
In this context an EV sports car could actually have the worse CO2 footprint due to the high upfront costs during battery manufacturing and the low number of miles driven/short lifetime of a vehicle like this. It may never hit the "break-even" vs. a synthetic fuel powered ICE sports car, unlike your standard commuter car which - given good cell chemistries, reasonable battery size, a production location with a good energy mix and proximity to the location of use to avoid shipping emissions, all of which seem to be improving - can hit this reasonably easily now within average vehicle lifetimes.
I'm no expert on these arguments and it depends a lot on monitoring entire supply chains and monitoring use (e.g. the aviation industry does a lot of PR with SAFs and in reality they make hardly a dent there right now), but as an engineer I do find the "let's do the actual math and see what makes sense" mindset a good one.
Koenigsegg with their hybrid powertrains makes that argument now and then and points out the parts of the perf spectrum/application space better served by the ICE due to the energy density of the fuel and what it does for weight.
In this context an EV sports car could actually have the worse CO2 footprint due to the high upfront costs during battery manufacturing and the low number of miles driven/short lifetime of a vehicle like this. It may never hit the "break-even" vs. a synthetic fuel powered ICE sports car, unlike your standard commuter car which - given good cell chemistries, reasonable battery size, a production location with a good energy mix and proximity to the location of use to avoid shipping emissions, all of which seem to be improving - can hit this reasonably easily now within average vehicle lifetimes.
I'm no expert on these arguments and it depends a lot on monitoring entire supply chains and monitoring use (e.g. the aviation industry does a lot of PR with SAFs and in reality they make hardly a dent there right now), but as an engineer I do find the "let's do the actual math and see what makes sense" mindset a good one.