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The way to "save the planet" is to not drive. Driving a 5000# vehicle around thinking you're doing good for the environment is just the marketing genius of the car industry in 2016.
In Germany, solar power is much more widespread, and so it is more likely that a German electric vehicle user would be riding in a vehicle charged from solar power. This is not to say anything about solar power or Germany, but rather to speak to the flexibility of the electric vehicle. Electric vehicles can depend on an infrastructure running on nuclear energy, or anything else, making it extremely adaptive to the ecological and energy needs of the future.
On the other hand, traditional combustion engine vehicles absolutely depend on fossil fuels, and they depend on a massive infrastructure that is specific to supplying fossil fuels. For a traditional combustion vehicle to shed its utter dependence on fossil fuels would mean finding an alternative and abundant fuel source to combust, and even then it would require a highly specific infrastructure to deliver those alternative fuels.
This is absolutely false. Lithium is not toxic to mine at all. It isn't even "mined".
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/12/lithium-mining-vs-oil-sa...
> Electric cars cause pollution
They cause zero pollution when you have solar panels on your roof and the car is properly scrapped after you're done with it.
> The way to "save the planet" is to not drive.
This is silly and impractical.
Realistically, at present most EV owners will not charge their cars from solar panels but from the utility mains and that means coal-generated electricity in many if not most areas.
Car manufacturing involves a tremendous investment of energy to mine and produce steel, aluminum, rubber, plastics, and electronics. Recycling itself consumes more energy, and in many cases raw virgin product is cheaper than recycled.
Not driving is impractical. Driving less, when possible, is worth considering.
Right now if you need to buy a car, the most environmentally friendly choice is probably a used (no new manufacturing) fuel-efficient conventional car.
[1] A friend of mine who owns one said the only thing worse than the 20 minute charge time is waiting 20 minutes to plug into an available spot.
[2] http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec17.pdf
Unless you factor in manufacturing.
There's also a ton of energy going into the cracking of crude into its constitutions parts before it even enters the supply chain for use in ICE vehicle.
Further, centralized power generation does a much better job at filtering and removing toxic elements from its discharge stream than gasoline/diesel vehicles filtering mechanisms do.
Notwithstanding the above, fossil fuel electric plants can be removed from the grid and replaced by cleaner energy solutions without having to replace or modify the consuming vehicle.
