> engine still burns fossil fuels
It does, it's just centralised and called a power station... it's incredibly naive to think a Telsa isn't contributing to burning fossil fuels - it's just not in front of your face.
Also I am not sure whether any modern power grid in the world could cope if even 10% of cars became PHEV, imagine the spike when everyone got home and plugged in their car - would be like a "TV Pickup[0]" on steriods, they usually cover these with short term solutions such as hydro pump but this wouldn't run the time it takes to charge a car.