I think that's a somewhat cynical take on it!
Diesels are great on CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. They're rubbish for particulates and NOx emissions. The car industry is like any other industry - it makes what it thinks people want to BUY. Politicians set the agenda. A couple of decades ago, CO2 was the bogey man, so the politicians pushed diesel. What's more,
we, the buying public, willingly played along with it because diesels give better MPG! In the course of that, the politicians took their eye off the ball on air quality, and the car industry took the pi55 and started cheating on its type approval tests. Even without actively cheating, it used to "play" the regulations, optimising the cars to only meet the requirements within the very narrow corridor that the test covered. The Regulators (in particular, the EU Commission) had a good grasp of particulates and introduced DPF requirements, so that as of a few years ago, diesels actually became BETTER on particulates than petrols! (So much so that GPFs (Gasoline Particulate Filters) are now starting to appear on new petrol cars). However, VW (and others) started cheating on their NOx emissions and that resulted in the Commission getting a proper kicking from the EU Parliament and told in no uncertain terms to sort it out, pronto. This resulted in a flurry of regulations, the result of which, is cars that are a huge amount cleaner than they were 5 years ago.
As for the claims about "whole vehicle lifecycle" emissions, I think they've been largely debunked. In fact Aston Martin recently got themselves into a lot of bother over such claims:
https://thenextweb.com/shift/2020/1...-behind-pr-firm-peddling-bogus-anti-ev-study/
Only today, there is a story doing the rounds, about a British firm developing a way of making electric motors without using rare earth magnets:
https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/british-firm-cracks-electric-car-152144501.html
The other thing to bear in mind, is that unlike an ICE vehicle, an electric vehicle's emissions are likely to IMPROVE with age, as the source from which it is charged becomes greener. How many people with ICE cars can get to (say) 10 years old and say their emissions are better than they were when the car left the factory? (And all without ever so much as lifting the bonnet)! Sure, I'll be the first to admit that EVs are not a panacea, but the environmental problems are being tackled, and improvements are coming thick and fast, whereas after 100 years of development, the ICE vehicle is on a very shallow curve when it comes to further environmental improvements. What's more, I say this as a dyed-in-the-wool petrolhead with a 30 year old car with no cat! I do actually like cars that make "vroom vroom" noises, rather than ones that sound like washing machines, but there's no denying that most of our towns and cities have an air quality problem!