Technically neither of those cars would be net environmentally friendly though. The mining operations to produce the cobalt required to produce EV batteries, including the hybrid electric engine of the Prius line, produces enough greenhouse gasses in the production of a single Hybrid/EV car to completely eclipse the lifetime operating emissions of a single ICE car.
Considering the Prius also has emissions, albeit fewer overall compared to a non-hybrid vehicle, it’s arguably worse than economy ICE alternatives over their lifespan. The electricity that powers the Tesla might be “clean”, but if it was produced by burning fossil fuels at a power plant, it’s just shifting the method of combustion from local (petroleum in the tank to feed the combustion engine) to centralized (shoveling coal into a furnace at a power plant) as powergrids will need to continue to ramp up production of electricity to power everybody’s cars now too.
Technically neither of those cars would be net environmentally friendly though. The mining operations to produce the cobalt required to produce EV batteries, including the hybrid electric engine of the Prius line, produces enough greenhouse gasses in the production of a single Hybrid/EV car to completely eclipse the lifetime operating emissions of a single ICE car.
Considering the Prius also has emissions, albeit fewer overall compared to a non-hybrid vehicle, it’s arguably worse than economy ICE alternatives over their lifespan. The electricity that powers the Tesla might be “clean”, but if it was produced by burning fossil fuels at a power plant, it’s just shifting the method of combustion from local (petroleum in the tank to feed the combustion engine) to centralized (shoveling coal into a furnace at a power plant) as powergrids will need to continue to ramp up production of electricity to power everybody’s cars now too.