1. We do not have a good estimate of vehicle making carbon footprint as it is difficult to get one - for example most of steel is recycled - so using raw "ore" calculation seem a bit bias. It is quite clear electrics have bigger foot print as their mass and cost are higher.
2. The actual foot print of electricity is not known - for example, coal power plant green cost + green cost of fuel over 40 year life span vs. similar costs for solar panels green cost over 20 year life span.
3. extra green costs of electric vehicles - such as new power stations, decommissioning of old ones, new power grid connections, upgrades to others etc.
Neither left nor right side of political spectrum seems interested to better model #1, #2 and #3. I strongly suspect "green energy" is simply "new oil" and has little to do with actually being "better" - even if it may be shown to be "better".
Food for thought - all fossil fuels did not capture some "artificial carbon" - they captured carbon from our planet Earth. There used to be all this carbon around - it was captured by plants and "stored". The only credit one can give to people not wanting to free this carbon is speed at which it is done.
Climate is like mountains - there is no bad climate, no bad mountains. It getting warmer or colder is not "bad" for Earth. Our planet is now much colder then it was 300m years ago - is that a good thing or a bad thing? Neither.
In most of Asia "green" is burning natural gas not wood. In Canada "green" is burning wood not natural gas.
