Yes, cost of production (to environment) is the issue. No one seems to think about this aspect of of buying a new car, majority of people think they are doing the world a favor when buying a new car with 10% better mpg and selling their 5 year old car!
IIRC, it takes 80 barrels of oil to make the average vehicle? Now I don't know what the range is for 'average' (is it compacts to semi-tractors?), but I am not sure about that number, seems too high in my honest educated opinion.
To get to the electric car dilemma, the batteries are the number one energy sucker for production, it's basically the cheaper it is for the manufacturer to produce, the 'cleaner' it is to produce; most of the time, but not always. Like I said a few weeks ago in someones post, Europositron of Finland 'supposedly has a battery chemistry that can achieve 1300+Wh/kg of energy density... if any of you don't know what that means, an R/C lipo pack has a density of at most 150Wh/kg, that's
9 times most energy stored per kg of pack, that's unbelievable at this day in age. But the most important aspect of these batteries is that they are able to be made VERY cheap, and VERY clean. A few thousand dollars will get you 1000 miles of range in a average sized car.
As for efficiencies, for a given vehicle, an ICE (internal combustion engine) has a "well to wheels" efficiency of about 10 - 12% IIRC.
An electric car for the same X vehicle will have an efficiency of 55%.
But in the end, this is not an issue of batteries, there is an underlying issue of energy source. We NEED a different energy source than oil. Zeropoint energy baby.