Is it a smoke screen?

According to the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, manufacturing every kilowatt-hour of lithium-ion battery storage for a Tesla releases 150 to 200 kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In other words, each Model S is responsible for about 17.5 tons of CO2 even before it has turned a wheel and to return the vehicle to carbon neutral status requires around eight years of driving. Other studies suggest that battery manufacturing creates so much CO2 that one needs to travel more than 50,000 miles in an electric car before it becomes less polluting than a conventional internal combustion engined automobile, which amounts to an electric car being driven for 20 miles every working day (allowing for weekends and holidays) for 10 years before the car clears its "carbon debt". And that is without taking into account the electricity being used to power the car.

The University of Michigan recently calculated the “well-to-wheels” production of automotive greenhouse gases involved in electric cars, with power generated by coal is equivalent to 29 miles per gallon of petrol. Solar power rates 350 mpg, nuclear power boosts this to 2,300 mpg and hydro-electricity tops the bill with a spectacular 5,100 mpg, allowing for the CO2 produced when building dams.