Naturally, deeper insights can also be gained from experimental techniques. The local lithium ion coordination can be characterized by vibrational spectroscopy, although subtle ambiguities in the interpretation of coordination numbers derived thereof have been pointed out. At the same time, vibrational spectroscopy is also a valuable tool to validate force fields used in MD simulations because of the reasons mentioned above. Unlike coordination numbers, it is much more challenging to experimentally probe distinct dynamical contributions. For example, Onsager coefficients can only be determined from electrophoretic NMR or other sophisticated techniques, using additional assumptions. On the other hand, these can readily be calculated from MD simulations, given sufficient statistics. Knowledge of the Onsager coefficients in turn allows one to identify whether a given electrolyte is limited by charge or mass transport, as well as the calculation of the transference number for different boundary conditions or reference frames. Due to these reasons, combined experimental and numerical approaches seem especially fruitful. In this work, we study the properties of LiPF 6 salt in EC/EMC mixtures using atomistic MD simulations and benchmark our polarizable and non-polarizable models to structural and transport properties from experiments for a variety of salt concentrations and EC:EMC ratios. The goal of this manuscript is fivefold. First, due to the importance of the force field, we compare different empirical potentials with respect to structural and dynamical observables. In particular, we investigate whether charge-rescaling of a non-polarizable force field reasonably approximates simulations with a polarizable force field and compare all with previously reported conductivity, viscosity and scattering data. Second, we report FTIR experiments, which are used for a bench-marking of the structural neighborhood of lithium ions between experiment and simulation. This comparison serves as an additional validation of the employed force field. Third, on this basis we use the simulation results to quantify the dynamic correlations between the motion of like and unlike charged ions. This allow us to obtain a clearer understanding of the differences between the ionic conductivity and the Nernst-Einstein conductivity, the latter just reflecting the diffusive properties. Fourth, we use a detailed structural characterization to rationalize our results about the transport properties. In this way, we obtain a detailed mechanistic understanding, thereby quantifying the well-known property of EC molecules to dissociate lithium-anion pairs. Finally, we apply a concept, recently introduced by the Roling group, to characterize the transport mechanisms and to elucidate for different compositions whether the transport is chargelimited or mass-limited.