We got the first to replace our 10-year-old, gas-powered Subaru, and after only two years of driving, the E.V. has created fewer emissions over its lifetime than if we had kept the old car. It will take our second E.V. only four years to create fewer emissions over its lifetime than the 2005 hybrid Prius it replaced. That’s counting the production of the batteries and the emissions from charging the E.V.s, and the emissions payback time will only continue to drop as more emissions-free wind and solar power comes onto the grid and battery technology improves.
The author of course did not look at having one less car, and substituting an ebike or mass transit for part of their driving, which would have lowered emissions by a larger amount.
They didn’t talk about it as even an option.
Of course they didn’t, they were talking about their own experiences, and if the have the options the average american has then they wouldn’t have any local transit to even compare it to. It’s an opinion piece for the New York Times on EVs, not an exhaustive comparison of all possible transit modes.