Right now the knee-jerk reaction of politicians seems to be only to tackle the issue of pollution at the point of use and have ignored the inherent environmental problems of cars powered by lithium-ion batteries.
That's because pollution at the point of use is what's directly causing so many health problems. The environmental problems and pollution caused by extraction of Lithium, Cobalt and suchlike are not inherent in the nature of the minerals, they are a result of poor environmental control laws and companies that are driven by profit over concern for the damage they are doing.
Criticise the environmental damage by all means, but let's not pretend that oil exploration, drilling, extraction, transport, refining and distribution are in any way clean and environmentally sound activities.
Plus of course the ultimate kicker - refining petrol/gasoline uses up enormous amounts of electrical power anyway, so it's not like we're avoiding electrical generation by having ICE cars.
