Prius' batteries are recharged by siphoning off power from the internal combustion engine and from regenerative braking. No external power connection is installed or necessary. (Except for the optional engine block heater. That runs on mains current.)
Isn't that simply "moving" the fossil-fuel consumption from the place of use to the place of production?
That's right, for the pure electric vehicles (EVs). I'm somewhat less concerned about the emissions than the Greens are - they're SULEV fetishists, whilst I'm looking at that mileage sticker. ;-)
Now, if we were to recharge pure EVs using nuclear power, then they ought to be happy; no "pollution", right? Wrong, they'd still find something to complain about.
For emissions, I don't know about scrubbing technology, whether it's more emission-efficient to have lots of little sources each with a catalyic converter or a few big sources each with scrubbers.