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I have yet to hear what it is about building an EV specifically, that takes so much more energy than the aluminum in the engine and all the manufacturing and transportation of all the thousands of parts in the drivetrain in the ICE. Everybody says it is the battery, but frankly, I have yet to hear that battery plants are such huge consumers of energy.
I have heard about how aluminum smelters are right up there with concrete production as one of the largest industrial users of energy. And I have heard that oil extraction, and oil refineries are both large consumers of energy - so there is a lot more energy embedded in gasoline/diesel than is directly contained in the liquid itself.
From what I have seen, it takes about 2 years of electricity production to offset the energy used to build a solar panel, so that leaves about 25-30 years (or more) of positive production. So, solar PV can negate a portion (at least?) of the building of the EV.
And since the Tesla Gigafactory is planned to be 100% powered by renewable energy, the batteries are actually carbon free and have virtually no energy overhead.
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