It's paid up front once. That battery is going to keep being a battery for the rest of its commercially viable lifespan. The gasoline just gets used up and you pollute over and over again to maintain having power.

Still a net pollution win. Pollution associated with industrial manufacturing of durable goods can be contained to specific areas and dealt with at scale by domain experts more easily than the diffuse pollution associated with burning fuel at point of use.

Producing a gas powered car is just as stinky and nasty, so they cancel each other out. Once the EV is made, that can be the end of it.

Better theirs than mine or yours.