True, solar panels and batteries do create pollution. But extracting petro, refining, transporting, storing and burning it isn't entirely clean either. There is also the human cost of all the people fighting over oil and the horrible governments that profit off of oil.

EV's are also more efficient even with the losses in electrical generation and distribution because internal combustion engines are so thermally inefficient.

There are notable cases where the private sector is/was way behind government. The internet itself would have been mostly impossible if private companies were left to their own devices. Some of you recall back to the early days of AOL / Prodigy / Compuserve / GEnie... all walled gardens, nobody played nice with each other. It took a government project and educational institutions to a) create interoperable protocols and software and b) license them freely. We're once again seeing some of the walled behavior come back nowadays with Facebook locking a big section of the internet behind their logins, Apple's closed ecosystem, etc). Competition often results in companies being intentionally incompatible, whereas government can unify a task.

Encryption also comes to mind although in it was heavily regulated by the U.S. government for many years. But the NSA is generally acknowledged to be about 20 years ahead of the civilian world in cryptography, and it has been that way for decades, even as the regulations were reduced. They recruit the best people, have huge resources, and have a very singular focus. Large corporations have research divisions but they are still loosely tied to profit centers, which aren't the best drivers for pure research.

I hear you, but mining lithium isn't a walk in the park either. Interesting article here: https://www.bloomberg.com/...hium-battery-future/

It really depends where the electricity comes from. ~68 percent comes coal and natural gas plants according the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

1.) Maybe most people don't agree the private sector is better at innovating. or.
2.) Maybe most people likely to take exception to the video don't agree the private sector is better.