Battery-powered electric cars have increasingly garnered attention in the last years as a replacement for fuel-powered engines. Car manufacturers such as Tesla and Toyota have steadily worked on decreasing the price point of electric cars to make them attainable for as many customers as possible. Marketed as a revolutionary product that will cut our CO2 emissions and make cities greener, consumers and politicians alike are being told these cars are the only viable way to a greener mobility.
Electric cars, however, emit CO2 indirectly in comparable amounts to regular fuel-powered cars. The production of a lithium-ion battery for cars requires enormous amounts of energy and rare earths that are difficult to source. In fact, even though electric cars do not emit CO2 once they’re actually used, a driver of a fuel-engine car could actually drive 50’000 km before surpassing the carbon footprint of a new electric car. Even once the electric car hits the road, the energy it’s powered with has to be green in order to not emit further CO2. The amount of CO2 emitted during the production process also greatly varies depending on the production country and the predominant energy source that country uses. One could thus argue that electric cars currently only have the potential to reduce carbon emissions in the future or with extended usage. Moreover, making a definitive assessment on how many carbon emissions an electric car causes exactly is a tough task because it heavily depends upon the source of energy used in a particular household or country.
Nonetheless, total efficiency was never expected from the start, just like fuel engines had to improve over time. Engineers are constantly working on ways to improve batteries in terms of capacity, size and production just as energy consumption as a whole in developed countries is gravitating towards greener alternatives.
To truly drive innovation in this field, consumer demand and infrastructure must match this effort and create incentives for businesses. This means governments subsidizing electric car purchases and charging stations as well as consumers choosing electric cars over fuel-engined cars in spite of higher prices and lesser convenience. We’re already seeing improvements in this regard as there are already more than 20,000 electric charging stations in the US alone.
Sources:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-16/the-dirt-on-clean-electric-cars
https://e-csr.net/hydrogen-electric-cars-sustainability-28156/
Shades of Green: Electric Cars’ Carbon Emissions Around the Globe
Thoughtful post! Even though batteries are still not as green as we think, people have to get used to the idea of electric cars. The fact that people are already getting used to the electric driving, will make it much easier to switch to electric driving in the future for other people as well. Moreover, the monitization of the EV’s is very important as well, the more people buy EV’s, the more reasearch can be done!
Hi Toshiro, very interesting post! I am also wondering why this topic isn’t more present in everyday politics as especially European countries such as the Netherlands and Germany heavily advertise the purchase of an electric vehicle. I found an interesting source stating that if we all switched to electric cars now, we would actually run out of (the finite resource) lithium within 5 decades which really is not a lot considering that you need to build a completely new infrastructure, new manufacturing processes etc..
I really am asking myself why electric vehicles are always discussed with such a focus, Angela Merkel even highlighting that this is the future while other alternatives might be ignored such as hydrogen-powered cars..
Sorry, I cannot edit the comment and forgot to put in the source.. here it is: https://theconversation.com/lithium-is-finite-but-clean-technology-relies-on-such-non-renewable-resources-109630
However, according to this source https://www.smmt.co.uk/industry-topics/environment/vehicle-recycling/, recycling vehicles is apparently working really well already which might be one good point at least. Additionally, I feel like the debate starts people/companies thinking about alternatives and therewith vitalises the market to some extent.
Interesting article, do you think that hydrogen powered cars are the next step rather than making EV more green?
Very interesting read, Toshiro! You are touching upon some very important factors in your article that indeed have a significant contribution to the total CO2 production of a product (the electric car in this example); rare earths, energy use for production,materials for car parts, transportation, etc. Contributing factors that are also known as the “hidden impact”; the impact that takes place before we even buy a product (book “the hidden impact” by Babette Porcelijn, 2016). Could definitely recommend the book!
In case of the electric car; Despite the fact that an electric car still has a huge (hidden) impact in terms of CO2 emissions, I still think it the right way forward for individuals and governments to buy and subsidise these types of cars, but only on the conditions that 1) new batteries are developed (more powerful, more efficient, live longer and need less rare commodities, 2) Companies invest in the development of new energy sources such as hydrogen, 3) the costs of fossil fuel cars will increase (through excise duties, taxes, etc.) as this will incentivise car manufacturers to invest in electric (or even other, more sustainable energy typed) cars.