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Power plants are much more efficient in converting fuel to energy than the combustion engines in vehicles, so, even if we use fossil fuel to generate the power that electric vehicles need, we will be in a better spot than the one we are right now.

(And I'm not even considering the energy that we need to expend to refine the oil to make fuel that vehicles can use).

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And also - even with a coal power plant you are producing electricity outside of major cities, so areas where people live are less polluted by cars driving through them. Everyone who has ever had a taxi driver idling their shitty diesel outside of your window at 2am should immediately understand how energy production moving to outside of cities is a good thing no matter how that energy is produced.

Yes, but you can turn it around and tell that people that use cars mostly in cities would have little to no incentive to be more efficient, because this externalizes harm to areas far away from them.

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