Sure, but how does that relate to environmentalists? The people lying were the car industry, but somehow the OP questions environmentalism. Why are they not questioning the car industry?

This is something I see a lot in science skepticism.

Someone incorrectly conveys a simple science concept, and people blame the scientist, not the communicator.

Like, News says "New revolutionary battery" and people roll their eyes and say "Oh but this will never make it to prod" and decide that scientists are liars and conveniently ignore that lithium battery density has like doubled over the past 20 years or so.

The person who was wrong was the unaware journalist taking a PR person's claims at face value, and having no context to smell test such a claim, and having no time or interest to treat the claim with skepticism anyway because "Batteries slightly improve" never sold newspapers.

But they blame science!