We already know how to recycle the most toxic vehicle batteries - made of lead and sulfuric acid. Most other battery technologies are far less toxic, and the recycle rate will be well over 99% because of the tremendous weight of the pack, and the hundreds of dollars of "core" residual value of the metals.
IF (big if) you powered electric cars on 100% coal, then emissions would be much better than gasoline cars. The biggest pollutant, CO2, would be lower by 2/3. There'd be more SO2, but less NOX and virtually no CO or HC.
http://sherryboschert.com/Downloads/Emissions%5B9%5D.pdf
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Samples/policy/voytishlong.html
But you WOULDN'T run electric cars on coal power for several reasons.
Most electrics will charge at night, when most stuff is turned off, so it would add to "base load" (24x7 energy consumption). Nothing says base load like nuclear power. Nukes are horribly expensive to build, but once they're built, they're dirt cheap to run. So they are run 24x7 at full power. What do they do at 3AM? Charge electric cars!
Wind is another big winner in base load.
Wind has a giant advantage: it can be built quickly. If you commit to build a nuke plant today, you'd be very lucky if it was online by the year 2020. Coal plants are quicker, but not by much. Wind, natural gas, and solar can go up much quicker. California actually got some natural gas plants built in time to help with the power crunch.
Wind/solar projects can be small, so they're easier to finance. For instance you can build a solar array on your roof, add the cost to your mortgage, and for many people, the savings off your power bill will more than pay the extra mortgage, i.e. it's "cash flow positive" from day one. Once the mortgage is paid off, it's free power!
Solar is useless for charging an electric car at night (obviously) but you can use your solar panels to sell the power back to the electric company during peak hours (at peak prices, wheeee!) and at night buy back power to charge your car.
The oil companies are not fools, they are diversifying into alternative power.
http://www.shell.com/solar/
http://www.shell.com/wind/
http://www.chevronenergy.com/renewable_energy/