Does it take into account the "massive energy cost" of manufacturing the ICE vehicle then?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_Rare_Earth_Mine#...
Because of ecology, refining of U.S. mined rare earths was outsourced for a very long time to China. Outsourcing of ecological damage...
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/mp-materials-sto...
There's obviously no ecological impact of mining and refining fossil fuel. The Deepwater Horizon actually reduced the amount of oil in the ocean.
And unlike batteries, which are non-recyclable and always have been. It's common to throw the lead-acid battery from ICE vehicles into the nearest body of water, for example. It's definitely not the case that 99% of them are recycled today. Whereas recycling coal and oil is trivial and done all the time. /s
Most in US don't know that recycling of lead-acid batteries from ICE vehicles is outsourced to Africa.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/...
https://www.sustainable-recycling.org/reports/urgent-strateg...
"Although efforts to enforce regulations in the United States have ramped up and cleanup is underway at some sites, many lead-acid batteries from the United States are exported to the Global South, where companies continue to cause harmful public health disasters, and US automotive companies subsequently purchase the recycled lead."
https://blog.ucs.org/jessica-dunn/how-recycling-is-done-matt...
Great, all better in that case. And that's the only time oil and gas extraction and shipping ever caused environmental issues. It's totally clean the rest of the time.
> Most in US don't know that recycling of lead-acid batteries from ICE vehicles is outsourced to Africa... and US automotive companies subsequently purchase the recycled lead
So the batteries can be recycled.
They can be recycled, but much more discussion in public should be done about who pays the ecological price of recycling, mining, refining. For example US automotive companies should be fined for outsourcing recycling of lead-acid batteries to Africa.
I don't think I ever said otherwise. FWIW I think cars are bad. Full stop. If they have to exist, electric cars appear to have fewer externalities.