if you have 'clean' electricity mix e.g. France (dominant nuclear), Norway (dominant hydro) then I consider electric car as 'ecologic' (after few years lower CO2 than conventional car).
For other places around the world where electricity is more 'dirty' just drive some small car with combustion engine and maintain it as long as possible. Small car needs less energy for transport then heavy electric vehicles.
Just the battery production can take 2-4 years to offset compare to a gasoline car[1]. Then you also have to take into account that battery have to be replaced regularly and the overall production of the car pollution.
It would be more ecological friendly to just use you gasoline car until it die and then only make the switch to electric. And even then, buying a used car and also running it until it dies might still be more ecological.
The technology will get better, on production level and on the car level. But right now, its very far from a clear cut to say if electric car are more 'green' than gazoline car (that are already produced).
Overall, the main issue is personal transportation. If you really want to be ecological, you should use mass transportation (excluding planes for short travel) whenever possible and use car sharing when you really need a personal transportation. The idea of all having a car sitting idle 90% of the time is fundamentally incompatible with ecology and electric car won't solve this.
Full life cycle assessment (well-to-wheels) comparison of four different power train technologies for production and usage. It is unclear if the usage value includes replacements and recycling. Values are in tonnes CO2 equivalent. Sorted from most to least CO2e consumed. Battery is second!
Power plants + EVs are much more efficient than ICE cars, even if the power plants are 'dirty', for many reasons: recuperation, the car not spending more energy warming up, thermodynamic efficiency of the engine compared to generator, etc.
Digging up liquefied dinosaurs, shipping them thousands of kilometers all over the world in huge ships, doing crazy chemical things with them, and then burning them in small batches 2500 times a minute ... how could that ever make more sense than using power grid?
For other places around the world where electricity is more 'dirty' just drive some small car with combustion engine and maintain it as long as possible. Small car needs less energy for transport then heavy electric vehicles.