Actually my reply was for someone else:
. . .
The 'defeat device' for hybrid/electrical vehicles is not car manufacturers lying but not giving the whole picture of the environmental addition of battery mining/manufacturing/recycling to the tailpipe emissions of such vehicles.
How many additional people die worldwide due to the hazards involved with mining rare earth minerals for hybrid/electrical vehicles? Is that important to hybrid vehicle owners or is it negligible?
Something about not throwing rocks comes to mind. <GRINS>
As for epidemiology studies, I'm no expert. But when I can, I prefer to find the source material for an article versus someone's interpretation. Still at age 65, I've had direct experience with air pollution in California, Denver, and Washington DC.
In April 1992, I was driving a VW MicroBus in Riverside CA taking a cloverleaf. Suddenly my eyes teared up worse than the Marine Corps, pepper gas training hut that I'd gone through less than a year earlier. I was briefly, involuntarily blind at ~30 mph in a turn. Fortunately, I had a damp T-shirt next to the seat and a quick wipe returned enough vision to complete the turn.
I hope the youngsters never have to live with that bad air again. But it was direct experience that taught old guys like me why the Clean Air Act is so important. Yet I realize those who grew up with what we breath now can not relate to the old days . . . unless they visit places like this one in China:
But I like our Prius because they give us 52 MPG, year after year, city and highway. Still, one of my first modifications was to make our 2003 Prius into an emergency generator:
http://hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/priups.html
In April 2011, tornadoes tore up the TVA transmission lines and we had 4 days, 6 hours, without utility power. We burned 2 gallons per day to quietly and safely have 1 kW, enough for lights, TV, and the gas heater. In contrast, we could hear a neighbor half a block away who risked the carbon monoxide exhaust. This remains a popular Prius modification and appears to be an option in the new, 2016 Prius. At one time the Ford Escape hybrid had this as an option.
Bob Wilson