It's not a step in any direction. You still need to burn fossil fuels to mine the materials needed to produce electric cars, and you still need to burn fossil fuels to manufacture and transport them from point of manufacture to sales.
Not to mention, you also need to burn fossil fuels to charge them, at least primarily.
It's also worthy of noting that even if we remove all automobiles from the planet, it will do exactly nothing for reducing global warming.
All electric cars do is trade one form of pollution for another, and isn't really anything more than a bandaid solution for a gaping chest wound.
Are you suggesting that if we can't solve every problem simultaneously we should not solve any problems? It sounds like a step in the right direction to me. Hopefully this will spur steps to solving the other problems in other directions too.
Here is something that can support OPs claim. Car's are still manufactured with oil, all the plastic, the paint, the tires that comprise the vehicle are dependent on oil. A car requires a lot more oil to produce than people understand so until focus on materials is shifted the car production alone is still a problem.
Totally valid. It doesn't mean that until that problem is solved we shouldn't solve problems. I'd compare it to an anti gun-control argument I've heard. Roughly it's that some people who want guns enough will be able to get them, so gun control is useless because we can't stop all gun deaths at once. Which if flipped, is sort of saying that having less guns cheaply and easily available with more regulation is a bad thing.
Not to mention, you also need to burn fossil fuels to charge them, at least primarily.
It's also worthy of noting that even if we remove all automobiles from the planet, it will do exactly nothing for reducing global warming.
All electric cars do is trade one form of pollution for another, and isn't really anything more than a bandaid solution for a gaping chest wound.
Indeed, green is the new brown.