Electric Vehicles on the Move
Electric Vehicles
An update on the road ahead
Electric vehicles (EV) show great promise in reducing worldwide emissions in the long run, with a slightly higher upfront cost.
Research on their benefits and disadvantages is ongoing and intensive, but definitive results could be years away, because the technology’s overall impact depends on a number of variables. As with all new technologies, there is still much to learn, and several legitimate challenges, however many analysts are predicting a large market shift from traditional combustion engines as soon as 2025.
Many automakers, in line with government regulations and climate targets, have made commitments to stop selling gas and diesel vehicles entirely within the next 10 to 15 years, and already there have been significant increases annually of EVs purchased in major markets. In 2020, the U.S. registered 295,000 new electric cars, Germany at 395,000, and China leading the way at 1.2 million. Globally, electric car sales rose to a record 4.6% of all car sales, a 70% rise over 2019 numbers.¹
With such a shift on the horizon, and with all their potential, we look to examine the main issues surrounding EVs:
Recycling EV’s lithium-ion batteries
This is the big one. Only 5% of used EV batteries are recycled. Current recycling processes are terribly inefficient and harsh on the environment. Mining new materials is actually more cost effective, too, so lithium-ion batteries have essentially been thrown away since their inception in the mid 90’s, which is environmentally unsustainable. In response, private companies and governments are advancing recycling technologies worldwide; Redwood Materials founder J.B. Straubel (co-founder and former CTO at Tesla) claims that their process can recover between 95 and 98 percent of a battery’s nickel, cobalt, copper, aluminum, and graphite, and more than 80 percent of its lithium.
By 2020, CO2 emissions for electric vehicles are expected to decrease by 75%.
Limits and emissions of EV batteries
Producing an EV creates 30-40% more emissions than producing its gas-powered equivalent, and that’s mostly due to the battery. Battery efficacy is expected to continue increasing, and prices of batteries are projected to fall roughly 20% by 2023, as production techniques improve.
In the near future, the demand for yet-to-be mined metals that make EV batteries will increase quickly and could cause a potential bottleneck in availability. Solutions to cut down the amount of metals required per battery are being researched by scientists and automakers.
Charging EV batteries often uses fossil fuel generated electricity, which is a clear hurdle to reaching net-zero emissions. Decarbonizing the energy industry is the solution, an incredibly big task, and a topic big enough for its own post.
Consumer habits and concerns
Initially, the cost of EVs were relatively high, which was certainly enough to limit their appeal to many consumers. Costs are lowering and price parity versus conventional vehicles will be reached in the mid 2020’s.
There have also been concerns about charge time and distance covered per charge. Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) have attempted to solve these, but they lack infrastructure, are more expensive, and have sold at much lower rates than battery electric vehicles (BEV).
Improving battery technology will likely address these in time.
The reason for all of this research and attention is because of charts like the one below that compares CO2 emissions (current and projected) between electric and gas-powered vehicles.
Simply put, in 2021 an EV saves about 1.5 million grams of CO2 per year, which is equivalent to four return flights from London to Barcelona. With the 75% reduction in CO2 per-EV-mile expected by 2050, that’s a whole lot more frequent flier miles saved.
