"The mining takes more fossil fuels than the EV will ever save" Wild Bill's Law of Fungible Factors says that the true environmental cost of anything is equal to its purchase price. (You could just as easily say that the total labor cost of anything, etc.) Because the factors of production are fungible; but more importantly because when you think you are buying 'labor' you are actually buying what that worker buys with the money you pay him. Same for buying 'energy' or 'raw materials.' And that repeats for many generations of expenditure. Basically, everything that goes into making anything can be expressed as labor, energy, raw materials, finance costs etc. Because if you trace where that money goes, after only a very few iterations (maybe two or three), you are basically buying the same things. This is a bit of a mind-blowing concept at first, but it has many practical and useful consequences. One of which is that the 'embedded energy' required to make anything is equal to (or proportional to, if you prefer) the cost to buy it. And the same is true for any other factor -- labor for instance. So yes, an EV is harder on the environment than an equivalent and less-expensive ICE vehicle, simply because it costs more to make and to buy. This will always be true, so long as EVs cost more than ICEVs. Over time, as production quantities and experience increase, the cost of EVs should be expected to come down, barring a limiting factor like just not enough lithium to go around. In the past though, such things have never actually come to pass -- 'peak oil' for example. Look up the famous Simon-Ehrlich wager for more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager