But electric cars don't inherently save us from the detrimental aspects of burning fossil fuels. You have to change the source of the energy that we are putting

But electric cars don't inherently save us from the detrimental aspects of burning fossil fuels. You have to change the source of the energy that we are putting on the grid as well. You're right - in the short term an electric car is a coal/oil car. The advantage of abstracting out the energy source from the car by using electricity is that it can get cleaner over time. A car that gets 30 mpg today will get no more than that 10 years from now. An electric car that gets 300 miles on the equivalent of 20 gallons of gas/coal/oil can get more efficient over time as the grid gets upgraded to phase out fossil fuels. It is far easier to upgrade the 5000 or so power plants in the US than constantly upgrade the few hundred million cars on the road from gas to ethanol to hydrogen to mystery fuel.