Other Environmental Factors
Local Air Quality: EVs produce no tailpipe pollutants, which is a big plus for urban environments suffering from smog. Gas cars, especially older ones, emit NOx, particulates, etc. EV adoption can reduce these local pollutants significantly, benefiting public health. There is some particulate pollution from tire and brake wear for all cars; EVs tend to be heavier (so slightly more tire wear), but they also use regenerative braking which reduces brake dust.
Noise: EVs are quiet. This reduces noise pollution in cities and near highways. Quieter cities can have positive impacts on human stress and even urban wildlife.
Resource Use: EVs rely on rare minerals like lithium and cobalt. Mining these has environmental and social impacts (water use, habitat disruption, mining waste). There’s a push to develop batteries needing less or no cobalt, to diversify lithium sources, and to recycle materials. Gasoline cars, on the other hand, require constant extraction of oil (with risks of spills, habitat destruction, and political issues). And oil is a continuous need – you burn it and it's gone. Battery materials, once mined, can be reused or recycled potentially.
Electricity Infrastructure: Charging EVs requires robust power grids. If lots of EVs charge at peak times, it can strain grids. However, this is a manageable issue – with smart charging (charging at night or when renewables are plentiful), EVs could actually help grid stability (like acting as distributed storage). Many places are adapting, and the environmental angle is ensuring electricity supply adds more renewable capacity rather than more coal plants to meet EV demand.
End-of-life: Gas cars end up at junkyards too, but we have a system to recycle most scrap metal. EV batteries at end-of-life currently might go to recycling facilities or could be repurposed for energy storage. We need to ensure batteries are not just landfilled. Luckily the materials inside (like nickel, cobalt) are valuable enough that there's economic incentive to recycle them.