Some people might have overestimated, others might have underestimated, others pushed misinformation, some changed their minds, others never bothered to make a numerical prediction. Saying "than first thought" without saying who "thought" is very meaningless.

They couldn't provide a graph showing CO2 emissions over time, including the embedded energy in making the car and the point at which a new EV starts to have a lower impact than keeping a combustion engine car running? I swear I've seen that kind of graph before in studies/aricles on this topic and it's a great at-a-glance way to visualise it.