Why would executives put themselves at risk for nothing? Why would they spend so much money for nothing? Why lie if the lie doesn't benefit them?
The truth is that these disinformation campaigns to this day are killing our transition away from fossil fuels. They have spawned a political movement that is far more extreme than the publicly stated opinions of the fossil fuel companies.
One prime example of this disinformation campaign is repeated by you:
> let's not even get started on the ecological footprint of batteries.
This myth that batteries are somehow worse than fuel is exactly the type of disinformation that fossil fuel companies manufacture and that others spread, seemingly willingly, because of their tribal politics motivations. You don't know the footprint of batteries for electrical cars. It's certainly no worse than what we use to make the rest of a car. I've spent hours combing the web for concrete ecological impacts. The only concrete thing anybody talks about are not ecological, but social. Indigenous people in South America not getting compensated for their land. Cobalt mining from artisanal, unaccounted mines using child labor. But the ecological footprint is a tiny shadow of all the steel, copper, etc. that goes into al the rest of society.