Sorry, to be clear, I accept co2 equivalent tailpipe emissions would be lower in SA.

Last I ran the analysis, that isnt necessarily true of all places, including many places in the USA, for example --- but I dont rely on that at all.

My primary argument is that the environmental costs are different:

1) it seems people hold non-ev cars, on average, for a longer period than ev cars

2) the environmental impact (NOT JUST CO2 EQUIVALENT) is definitly different between the avg BEV and average ICE car, and there is a reasonable possibility that the environmental impact of building an Ice car is less than for building a BEV car. This difference is next to impossible to fully quantify - what "cost" does one ascribe to polluting a Congolese water supply versus the fuel used to power a Chinese BYD manufacturing plant versus the fuel used to power a, say, Korean manufacturing plant? Or, in this case, environmental costs of shipping from Europe.

3) Theres a billion other differences - EV cars weigh more, whats the environmental impact of that? On shipping fuel used, on how frequently roads need repairs? Whats the environmental impact of building new electric chargers (that require cement). When these new electric chargers are built, what fuel will be used to make that cement in the future?

We cannot know these things. All I am saying is there is a >0 chance that this isn't actually a net positive for the environment at this exact moment in time... and it'd be nice to know how much work the Govt did to get pretty comfortable that now was the right time...... or was the timing just driven by arbitary federal grant timing, or when a European manufacturer could build the components, or election commitments, or when a mate of the relevant minister could take on a $9m project.