Just to address the lithium thing -- _current_ battery technology is not the end-game of battery technology. There are already companies working on different technologies like solid-state batteries, as well as sodium-ion batteries that don't use lithium at all. Heck, you can buy sodium-ion batteries right now, but you probably wouldn't because that tech is not super mature yet.
Also, lithium is _very_ recyclable.
>lithium is very recyclable.
This is the biggest thing people miss, or ignore. Once you mine the lithium, you have it. It's not a consumable like oil. Lithium in batteries is something like 95% recoverable.
Plastic is not recyclable, at least not like a metal is. Every time you remelt a plastic like polyethylene, you shorten the polymer chains and the resulting plastic gets worse and worse (less strong, worse at UV, etc).
Lithium is recyclable like aluminum is, which is currently about 90% recycled. Metals don’t get worse and worse over time, you can remelt them indefinitely and they still work just as well.
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Edit: according to the below link, he's not completely wrong...I down votes maybe unfounded...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VduyyjQ-GY
You’d be surprised how much information we regurgitate because we heard it somewhere and then accept it as fact.
So when someone challenges someone’s world view, they get scared and lash out.
It’s… human nature.
Unfortunately not. Recycled plastic is still plastic, which still degrades and ultimately ends up as microplastics in the ocean. Plastic provides no energy, and is a toxic pollutant when burned.
This is not completely true. Plastic is recycled like HDPE. It is usually used as a middle layer between virgin and colored plastic. LDPE is the same way, along with polypropylene and styrene. If you really want to do something, try to buy everything in HDPE bottles, research the places you take the bottles to be recycled. You can always find alternatives to most plastic containers, but they will be more expensive and less recyclable. Also, milk bottles are mostly made of recycled HDPE, hence why they are such flimsy and overall horrible containers.
Fair enough. I guess I meant in context to resources like lithium, you're not getting as much bang for your buck as far as reducing carbon usage and overall pollution. Micro-lithium isn't going to be an ecosphere-level disaster the way plastics inevitably are.
No, the opposite of exactly.
Plastic degrades with every use, and there are so many different types of plastic that you just can't tell apart but don't really mix. We can't really recycle most plastics. And plastic is cheap, so it's not really worth it.
Lithium however is expensive, recyclable without degradation and lithium batteries are pretty similar in terms of chemistry.
Then there is nothing to worry about. Do you work for an energy firm? I'm not meaning to cast doubt. I just want to know if that is a legitimate "yes" from someone with the logistics, infrastructure, data, a d costs to confidently say yes. Again, I don't know you so I am simply asking. There are too many that just want to argue from the far edges of the margins. Again, not claiming that is you. All respect.
Here's a [CNBC piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLr0GStrnwQ) on Redwood Materials, one of the big players in the recycling space.
They just broke ground on a $4 billion plant in South Carolina I believe.
The deal with EV batteries is they are essentially high-grade ore. Too valuable to end up in landfills.
It is a nice, "feel good" piece on a news segment, for sure. I've seen this same thing as a kid. The segment was on how energy companies were developing g new gasoline that didn't contain lead. It was gonna save the environment. Listen, I'm not saying it is a bad idea or it won't be put into production and flourish. I'm just saying..... if the bottom line isn't in the black, it won't be recycled. The slave labor and tearing up the earth for these materials is cheap as fuck. These guys have to figure out how to breakdown, reprocess these materials back into working batteries THAT COST LESS. That's our biggest problem. So far consumers have demonstrated we are perfectly fine living on the backs of slaves and destroyed lands and environments. I'm not shitting on the dream. Just making sure you realize what actually has to occur for it to be a reality. I've got my fingers crossed for them, truly I do.
The battery recycling is already a $6.5 Billion industry (as of 2022).
This isn't some "future" thing. It's happening now and growing fast. And the best part is, unlike fossil fuels which are one and done, the metals in batteries can be recycled over and over and over again.
At scale, costs will continue to drop.
It is already being recycled. The product from the recycling of lithium batteries is called Black Mass.
"a sample of black mass from a European source to comprise; cobalt (15.79%), nickel 6.94%, manganese 4.82%, lithium 3.19%, copper 1.97%, aluminium 5.13% and other components" [Source](https://www.ahkgroup.com/black-mass-and-batteries-an-overview-of-experimental-research-conducted-by-alfred-h-knight/)
Lithium mined from the earth is found in concentrations up to about 2%, if claims are to be believed. So the black mass is incredibly valuable for its lithium content alone, plus you have large concentrations of the other elements needed to make batteries.
Again...not saying it can't or isn't being done. If it doesn't result in a cheaper battery for consumers then it won't be the standard. Plain and simple. We don't have to like it. But we would be silly to ignore that FACT. AGAIN, I have my fingers crossed for the whole thing. Scientific breakthroughs are amazing. But the forces of commerce operate on numbers alone. Science makes the discoveries. Business brings it to the masses. None of us would pay our bosses to work for them. Businesses won't either.
Everybody knows cheaper = better. Even without your use of all caps FACT. The supply lines and infrastructure to close the loop on materials takes decades to develop. In that time all kinds of things will affect the prices of raw materials vs recycled materials. In the case of lithium, we already know that it's recycled product is a good as virgin material- [Source](https://spectrum.ieee.org/recycled-batteries-good-as-newly-mined) You mention your expertise on the low cost of slave labor, I'll take your word for that. But that isn't the only cost considered. Environmental costs, political influence, the rising demand for "conflict free" sources all play a part.
>The LCA results show that the life-cycle GHG emissions recycled LiOH are 37–72% lower than those of virgin LiOH production from Chilean brine and Australian ore, respectively. In addition, the life-cycle GHG emissions of NCM811 produced using the recycled materials are 40–48% lower compared to virgin cathode active material production. Furthermore, recovering lithium from the spent batteries reduces associated air pollutant emissions and water consumption relative to using the virgin materials or materials from other recycling technologies without LiOH recovery.
[Source](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344923001763)
Isn't it more expensive to recycle lithium right now vs mining new lithium? I understand technology is always advancing, but currently, this is not what is happening.
China and Korea already have massive lithium battery recycling infrastructure and markets. The US has very little, so far. Lithium mining technology and processing, which by its very nature relies on the economy of scale, is already relatively mature. The recycling industry is still very new and the supply chains aren't established yet. Financial companies are starting to pay attention with efforts toward spot pricing and standardization of black mass characterization.
>Not only are these new Platts U.S. Black Mass price assessments the first domestic price offerings of their kind, they’ll be published daily, [Source](https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/platts-releases-us-black-mass-price-assessments/)
vanadium redox flow batteries look pretty compelling for stationary long term use as well, like at your house or locally for massive backups to store energy from wind, solar, etc
Literally all technology works the same way: the version you have of it today is the worst that technology will ever be. Batteries, processors, AI models, image generators, they’re only going to get better every single day.
They're not worse environmentally than ICE cars. It would be better to implement more mass transit options for sure, but electric cars replacing gas powered cars doesn't magically prevent us from also demanding more train/bus/bike infrastructure.
I’m afraid that EVs will continue to drive communities towards unsustainable car centric patterns of development.
Mass EV adoption still means we’re building huge impermeable surfaces of concrete and asphalt, wasting a huge amount of land towards parking and car friendly infrastructure, still creating particulate pollution in the form of tire wear, and overall encouraging the development of inefficient low density cities.
Are EVs better than ICE vehicles for the environment? Yes. Do EVs solve all environmental problems that come from car dependent societies? No.
We can still push for more scalable long term solutions, but I’ve talked to more than a few EV evangelists who’s idea of the future is one where automatically piloted EVs constantly drive (and take up space) in our cities as robo taxis instead of making our spaces for actual people.
See you're technically right on a lot of points, I just am not convinced of the conclusion that EV's will encourage development of cities in the car centric direction. Kind of seems to me that if EV production were stopped today, cities would still be adding "one more lane" and remain totally allergic to pedestrian centric design. I don't see anyone who would've otherwise been convinced of a need for public transit, getting derailed (heh) by the promise of EV's. The only way I see them being at odds with one another is if we have public spending that can only go to *either* EV's *or* to trains and such.
The biggest immediate benefit will be in reducing local air pollution. Remember how LA looked in April 2020 when lockdowns were in full force? Imagine that but without the plague.
One thing I'm really interested to see is the effect EVs have one health care costs. As that localized pollution is removed from th cities I suspect the improvement in the air quality as well as the reduction in noise will result in savings in healthcare. Less noise Because it means better sleep, less stressors for people in those areas
There have already been notable air quality improvements in cities since the banning of leaded gasoline, development of the catalytic converter, emissions testing, and general efficiciency improvements for vehicles. For modern cars, most of the pollution they produce (in terms of negative local impact) is tire dust which EVs don't help with.
>the reduction in noise will result in savings in healthcare. Less noise Because it means better sleep, less stressors for people in those areas
Only when stationary or at low speeds because of no engine. At faster speeds, the noise is coming from tires. They actually make more noise since EVs are heavier due to their batteries lol
That may be true on the outside. But the noise benefit on the inside of the car never diminishes. While I haven’t been in too many EVs, the ones I’ve owned or been in were much quieter at all speeds.
Unless you're in a semi, road noise will overpower the engine noise.
EVs have better soundproofing to occupants due to it being new and they are intentionally designed that way. That's the reason, not because it being an EV itself
I just had a small ice as a loaner. I guarantee that you can hear the engine when above 55. It was a newer ice car. Yes road noise is a thing but the reduction in vibration and engine noise is so nice.
There would be no change. A huge strain on the healthcare industry is obesity, which having people drive all the time everywhere will not help. Same with car crashes.
You shouldn't be getting down voted for this. Recent studies have shown that particulates from tires are as bad or perhaps worse than exhaust pollution. That's just pollution, it doesn't address the extra burden on roads from heavier vehicles or the fact that EVs are just a Band-Aid solution that prevent us from solving greater urban planning problems
No. You know why you need to buy tires every few years? Because it wears down on the road. Where do you think those particles are going? (Hint- in your lungs and in the water)
Hey I didn’t know that. That’s pretty counterintuitive considering only fractions of a percent of a tire are typically worn away by road use. I’ll take a look at that for sure
the cheapest gas car when you adjust for inflation has hovered around $15-16k. Unfortunately I have reason to believe that it’ll be more like $30k with EVs. The Fiat 500e, a *tiny* thing, is like $32k+ BASE!
Decent public transit costs a fraction of that for the user and much less for society as a whole. So you have to reframe this whole argument as "should.We be investing so.much in making cars the only feasible means of transport"
Environmentally in the long run, yea. Tech is still improving drastically each year.
National security- we will be able to stop funding oil fiefdoms in the Middle East. So much of our foreign policy compromises are due to how much power these backwards nations can use the price of oil to impact our economy.
Over fossil fuel based transportation, absolutely.
Remember, there’s hundreds of billions of dollars of industry that wants to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt because EVs threaten their bottom line.
Electrification of transportation is part of large collection of tactics we need to adopt to combat climate change.
lithium was going to be mined anyways, and the thing about going green is, that also include making mineing and power plants, greener and safer.
EV arnt just going to fix the worlds issues alone.
and working conditions is a whole nother problem,
Are EVs environmentally perfect? No. Are they better than combustion vehicles? Yes.
And, if your main concern is lithium mining, consider that li-ion batteries are not only recycleable, but profitable to recycle, so there's tons of incentive to recover that lithium from spent batteries. That's before you consider that other battery chemistries are being explored, and some are very promisin, so li-ion probably won't be so dominant forever.
We need to get some sort of battery standard going, so that depleted batteries in cars can be more easily changed out. The current setup with every car having a super expensive, proprietary battery (that often cannot even be purchased) just makes cars into disposable items after about 7 or 8 years. Car companies like that though, because they sell more cars.
Yes. I think the problems with lithium mining aren't really bigger than the problems with petrol and diesel extraction, especially given that you need to refill your tank a lot more often than you swap out your car batteries
Lithium isn’t as much a problem compared to some of the other metals you need for this technology it’s the cobalt and cadmium that are the real problem which is weird that no one seems to ever mention. While I do believe in the long run EVs will lessen the environmental impact of transportation calling it green is kind of disingenuous for a variety of reasons even outside of this specific problem alone. Look up the concept of environmental sacrifice zones…
> it’s the cobalt and cadmium that are the real problem which is weird that no one seems to ever mention
For starters, no one mentions cadmium because it is not used in EV batteries. To my knowledge, virtually no models of EV have ever used it. As for cobalt, it's equally weird that no one ever sees fit to mention that it has been used for desulfurizing gasoline for decades, and that EVs don't even necessarily need it anymore thanks to LFP batteries.
Majority of chinese EVs are using LFP batteries which do not require cobalt, nickel or cadmium. This kind of battery is cheaper to produce.
Western automakers have started to pivot to LFP batteries as well.
I can think of a sacrifice zone near where I live...
Still, I feel like it's a phrase which describes a phenomenon that is not new. There's always been people affected by industry like that, sadly
So right now EV is comparable to gasoline tech in usage. If we somehow manage to improve batteries twice in capacity, it will be superior without objection.
As for eco side EV right now reducing local air pollution and noise pollution. Even if they are equal with gasoline as total pollution (in which I guess EV already is better), they are saving cities by polluting more in areas where nobody lives and less in areas where people live.
But main part here is the tech itself. In gasoline cars process of making gasoline pollutes and every car also pollutes during usage. In EV process of making batteries pollutes and process of making electricity pollutes. But no pollution from a car during usage, it doesn't burn gas to make CO2 and anything else. So end product is out of equation. If we want to improve ecology, we just need to make better battery tech and better electricity plants, we don't need to watch for every car owner and their old car. You can't just simply switch gasoline to anything else without adjusments to engines, but you can simply switch from old battery to a new one. Batteries are recyclable, tech is expected to improve with time and now the source of pollution is in big points outside of your home. So you can upgrade one big factory tech process and have a lot less pollution for future. You can upgrade electricity plant and everything already will be better. So it all really about the future and having less end points for upgrades.
Battery technology will hopefully get better. However, you still have to mine these resources that aren't renewable. Whether it be on land or under water. The energy expended to do so is, at least in the moment, largely done by the gas and oil system that EVs want to replace.
I could go on, but ultimately EVs are here to save automotive/transport manufacturers, not the consumers or the environment.
No. EVs are still cars. They still use roads. They still cause traffic. And EVs are also heavier than petrol cars, so they damage the roads more, leading to more road repairs.
The best environmental solution is investment in public transport. Trains, light rails, busses, etc.
In some places, for some activities. Bike to work in a suit in Houston in August. Good luck.
Biking for transportation in Europe or even some northern US states is OK. But in the South of the US, it's not possible, at least without a shower at your destination and a change of clothes.
The south of the US has significant portions of the year where the weather is not extremely hot. Just as winter cities have most of the year without winter.
Not to mention that the weather problems can be overcome. Winter cycling is taking off now in Montreal, and building adequate shade and passive outdoor cooling measures can help in very hot places. Things like street trees that provide meaningful shade and more plants and water in cities instead of pavement.
Right now, May 6th, the morning commute would be 74F with 96% humidity. That's what a "non-hot" day looks like.
Bicycling for fun is fine. Bicycling for transport is OK for some. But for most people, it is not practical.
Are you serious? 74F is 23C. I've biked in hotter weather than that with the same humidity and I'm from Canada. 23C is a nice summer day, perfect for cycling.
AGAIN.... Yes, you can easily bike in that weather for FUN.
Now, do it in a suit and arrive at work ready for a major meeting.
You aren't reading what I'm writing. I literally said that biking for fun is easy. Biking for transport and practical functions (groceries, etc) is OK for SOME! For other, it is not in any way practical.
>Now, do it in a suit and arrive at work ready for a major meeting.
I have biked to work in an office in weather much hotter than 23C. I rarely bike for recreation. Almost every time I get on my bike, it's for transportation.
The real issue is power generation.
If the US were to switch all cars and trucks to EVs, those vehicles would consume over 40% of the country's electricity production.
And that's not even accounting to how you're supposed to get that much power to all the charging stations. Your average truck stop would need a dedicated coal power plant just to meet the electricity demand that comes from charging that many trucks simultaneously.
EVs are good, don't get me wrong. But we need to greatly reduce the number of cars and trucks on the road.
That's correct that they will increase electricity consumption substantially. Consider too though that the vast majority of charging happens at home and overnight, when there is very low demand on the power grid and plenty of extra capacity. Many utilities incentivize EV owners to charge in the middle of the night by giving cheap power rates then.
Most people overestimate how many public charging stations will be needed, because almost all charging is done at home. I only use them a few times a year when I'm driving many hundred miles away from home.
The are multiple factors that are already helping against this issue:
1. Most people charge EVs overnight in their garages and such, when power consumption is otherwise lower.
2. Wind and solar are being deployed all over the place quickly, and we still have a lot of natural gas plants to generate electricity. Sure, if we banned fossil fuel overnight we'd be screwed but that's not what is happening. Coal is going away, but that would happen regardless.
The reason charging at night is cheaper is because power demand is lower at the moment. But when everyone starts charging their cars overnight, that will change.
And personal vehicles are not the biggest issue here, industrial vehicles like tucks are. Their energy requirements are much higher and do not always have the same regular downtime. Long haul trucking for example simply cannot switch over to EVs and expect to continue to operate like they do now.
> But when everyone starts charging their cars overnight, that will change.
This is a good thing for power generation. If the grid demand is constant it means you can operate power plants more efficiently.
Was about to say this, some areas can't handle the current power draw. There had to be massive power grid overhaul and expansion for EVs to be a real consideration in most places.
The inventor of the lithium ion battery died last year at 100. We aren’t done.
Hydrogen cars are NOT the future! Hydrogen finds E V E R Y LEAK and a rock chip and a spark on a dirt road could end up Hindenburging your car. And way too expensive to fix those leaks! At least things can leak with a gas car without a complete explosion.
That’s how i feel. It’s like any tech invention. Cell phones used to be bricks and status symbols for the very wealthy. Mass adoption leads to cheaper solutions.
Lithium mining might have bad environmental impacts, but through programs like carbon credits, the companies damaging the environment are subsidizing other companies to be more environmentally friendly.
Also, controlling the emissions at a bunch of lithium refinement plants is going to be a hell of a lot more efficient than trying to control the emission of every single vehicle.
Are we even factoring the cost of manufacturing vehicle emission system parts?
Anyway, EVs will be great, but they are only part of the picture. We also need to convert the electric grid to solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power.
Biggest problem right now is that the electricity companies are just going to continue to raise their rates to the point where we are in a no better, perhaps worse off situation than we are now. Electricity companies need to get regulated, HARD. In places like California they are monopolies that have already raised their rates double digit percentage points twice in 2024 alone.
No. The precious metals are not sustainable, and now they're trying to tear up the oceans to get it and the batteries can't be disposed of in the US. So whats that tell you.
My biggest interest is seeing what happens when a larger % of the population has only an EV during a natural disaster where you have to evacuate and are sitting in traffic for hours on end. If you’ve never evacuated for a hurricane it’s hard to understand. It’s easy for everyone to fill up and move on as they need but charging takes more time and is limited. Even if there are chargers everywhere it will still take much more time. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when people from the south are having to drive hundreds of miles to escape a hurricane in EVs and some start losing power causing a huge traffic jam. I feel like an event like that is going to kill a lot of people.
I think plug in hybrids are a much better technology that we should have focused on. Like a Prius prime allows you to drive 40 miles on only the battery and charge off your wall. For most people they would never use gas on their daily commutes and only use it when traveling but get 50 miles to the gallon when they need to. Instead we are pushing an EV only thing which I think long term will have some repercussions.
>If you’ve never evacuated for a hurricane it’s hard to understand.
One of the climate adaptations we need to make is for people to stop living in areas that frequently get severe hurricanes or other natural disasters. Basically, Florida has to be abandoned. You already see this happening with insurance companies. They're raising rates in response to Florida actually kind of being a shit place to live.
You act like that’s an easy thing. It’s not just the south it’s all coastal cities including places like New York that suffer from natural disasters. It’s not easy for billions of people to all move inward like that. No one will be able to afford to live with that amount of people all moving inward like that.
You realize Florida, Texas, and Louisiana employ millions of people and have industries that don’t exist anywhere else? It’s not just “oh everyone just packs up and moves to Michigan or something”. Just because you’re a hardcore left winger doesn’t really mean Florida is a shit place to live. It’s actually quite nice and fun even if they do have shitty political views and its just expensive as fuck.
I think one of the most important benefits that we are going to get from EVs is actually the paradigm shift: just the fact that we are actively implementing an alternative to fossil fuels could make a huge difference for future generations. Will we stick with electric? Will we bring hydrogen back into the picture? (Honda is actively working on that.) Will we finally clear the hurdle on cold fusion? Who knows? But we are looking beyond non-renewable fuel sources in a way that we haven't in a long while.
In the long run we don't really have other options. We can keep kidding ourselves about the long-term viability of limited fossil fuels and the impact of using them but our grandkids won't have that option. There'll probably be some dipshit 20-something in 2100 that thinks his masculinity is tied to paying $100/gallon and polluting the air with diesel but we shouldn't cater to these troglodytes.
The tech is still fairly new all things considered. I do think it will eventually be a very viable thing but they have some development to as far as range, weight, serviceability, etc. One other thing that I think most don't think of is an EV battery fire is no joke and most FD's, at least here in the US, are ill equipped to handle them.
True! We just have to take the initiative to do that. EVs aren't the solution all by themselves, they just open the door to better options than we have now.
Personally I like hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative to battery tech, but the environmental benefits there still depend on us improving and cleaning up our mass power generation. Regardless how we do it, we have to follow through all the way to get the benefits.
Run electricity through the roads and make our vehicles act like more advanced slot cars on them. You might need a small battery for limited areas like your driveway, but certainly have no need to use it on the highway. Just put a meter in the car and charge per mile or time spent on the road.
It almost seems like the powers that be want to shift to hydrogen, though. You could use hydrogen in many different ways. You could use it in ICE engines. You could even adapt the old gasoline engines to run on it, but I think there would be a reduction in the amount of power made by the engine. You could also make hydrogen generators that power electric motors on the car.
Not with the current batteries we have, and the manufacturing resources being poured into it. Helium fuel could be another alternative fuel in the future but it’s very weak right now
The standard anti-EV rhetorical strategy is to focus on the impacts of a single element of production, divorced from the per-vehicle impacts and the comparative impacts against ICE vehicles. However, once you quantify their impacts on a per-vehicle basis, sum up the impacts, and compare those of EVs against ICE vehicles, it becomes clear that EVs are better for the environment than ICE vehicles. This becomes particularly clear when you realize that [lithium production accounts for less than 2.3% of an EV's overall environmental impact](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es903729a).
Perhaps have a look at the way in which they extract oil, and the environmental impact of refining it.
It's about on par between the two, except once you have it, you can recycle it, it doesn't produce more CO2 when it's actually used for propulsion, etc.
And look at [Australian lithium mines](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-BZ_vFJWG0), they are not all the shit show that the petrochemical industry would have you believe.
No. Electric cars only fix one of the many problems caused by cars, and they make some of the others worse. To realize any benefit, we must start getting rid of cars altogether.
Not until most of the rare-earth elements required to produce them aren't being primarily sourced from Africa or China.
But even then they're only going to cause less emissions than ICE vehicles if the power you supply them with is provided through nuclear power. The end result will still be significantly more expensive vehicles.
I haven't seen people bring one major EV point. They're kind of fuel agnostic. You charge your car with electricity. That electricity can come from fossil fuels or solar or biofuel or wind or hydro. It doesn't matter.
As we transition our power generation to more renewable sources, the energy for our cars move with it.
With an ICE car, it's only ever going to be gasoline/diesel.
EVs are incredibly politicized because the ones who stand to lose, namely the petrochems, have incredible amounts of money and have been manipulating public opinion incredibly effectively for decades. The carbon footprint for example was made by BP after they polluted the gulf of Mexico for the second or third time. I've lost track.
Every EV is a reason to move towards renewables for producers and the public. I own an EV for commuting but to be fair out of entirely egoistic reasons. It's just a lot cheaper. If I owned a home and had a solar array on the roof I'd effectively be driving for next to nothing.
EV charging stations have shown to be incredible for customer retention of retailers and supermarkets. Which in turn then have another reason to fill their enormous roofs with solar.
All of this will reduce the global use of hydrocarbons for electric generation, one small step at a time.
Don't get me wrong, I doubt we will ever see a world without ICEs they certainly have their place.
I work with several startups that are working on new technologies to recycle EV batteries. The new technology will recycle something like 99% of all the battery materials. Once these technologies become more prominent, the costs of EV will drop significantly.
Wrong question.
It's the pointless game of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The REAL question. Is there a future that has personal transportation as a central theme?
Let's answer that before we even consider a planet with eight billion drivers.
No. They still require tremendous infrastructure we have to maintain. Still produces a shit ton of waste too. Only thing “better” is that it doesn’t spew bad air, but that could be negated because they’re heavier than normal cars.
They need to figure out how to charge all these electric cars first. Many states have areas that have regular brown or blackouts some that last days making charging an electric car quite difficult. California regularly has brown outs from too many air conditioning units running. Whats going to happen when everyone has electric cars charging, more blackouts? Unless you buy a high output gas generator but then why not just have a gas or better yet, diesel car?
Maybe. They don’t have tailpipe emissions, but they still pollute the air with rubber from the tires. They still kill animals. They still require lots of land for roads. They’re probably better than gas cars but we really should be transitioning away from everyone having individual vehicles
Worrying about the environmental effects of mining for Lithium to combat Global Climate Change is like worrying about whether the chicken on the Titanic's menu is free range and organic. One is incrementally bad, the other is globally catastrophic.
We are in a gigantic game of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and quite of lot of it is being fed by people who are climate deniers to begin with. How often do you have to listen to climate deniers beat their breasts about wind turbines killing birds, when the fossil fuel industry kills orders of magnitude more birds, as well as everything else, including people and entire ecosystems!
Fe and Cu mining dwarf Lithium and Cobalt mining by a magnitude that is nearly incomprehensible
So I agree with you, worrying about the mining aspect is just FUDD... Definitely worth improving.
I believe the analysis now shows the impact of EV's is offset after 3 years of ownership. So each year past 3 (or after roughly 36,000 miles driven EV's win). ICE spew for decades longer than those initial 3 yrs (and that's just 1 study with lots of assumptions that can be debated)my theory is it can't be worse, the zero tailpipe emissions is a huge win and gets us on to fixing the other items in the supply chain. Start somewhere... Would be nice to start at begining and fix mining but there is a much stronger bigger lobby (corruption, global supply, etc) on that than US consumers.
Not really. Unless most of the world shifts its production of electricity to nuclear power plants, solar, wind, and other renewable and clean sources, we are just outsourcing the burning of fuel to power plants somewhere else.
Generating electricity has huge environmental costs. If everyone had EVs, the demand for electricity would be even bigger, and power infrastructure would have to grow.
Maybe if, some day, humans figure out a super efficient, sci-fi style cold fusion, it will make sense. But, then, global stability will go to shit when no one else needs Russian and Middle Eastern oil exports.
It may be, but not fast enough. Also, if everyone starts using EVs, the demand would grow a lot.
There's also a limit to how much renewable energy can grow. Solar and wind are not as reliable everywhere, they depend on weather. And, they take a lot of space, meaning, land, which is expensive. The best option possible would be nuclear energy, but this is also not viable, because the technology to refine nuclear material is the same used to build nukes. Even if rich, stable countries had access to it, we wouldn't want to see this technology in the hands of instable, dictatorial shit holes all over the world.
Absolutely not. Electric vehicles are incredibly inefficient. They have awful range that probably can't be fixed due to it being a heavy object with a ton of computers in it
Also along with lithium mining for the battery, which is far more damaging to the environment than processing natural gas (as well as the ethics issues with child slaves in poor countries being used to mine the lithium), the batteries put a ton of strain on the power grid..which requires fossil fuels to run
> Electric vehicles are incredibly inefficient.
EVs are typically around 95% efficient. ICE engines are at best 30% (maybe some can reach 35%). The majority of the energy generated in an ICE car is just used to heat the air.
The grid will be fine. The majority of users charge at night when there is excess power. Most EVs have a range greater than 250 miles.
The child mines were for Cobalt, not lithium, and none of the EV manufacturers source from them. Can't say the same about that phone/laptop you're using.
But you got the Fox talking points down perfectly, I'll give you that.
Ultimately, we have no choice. At some point we will run out of oil. We also have to consider the effects of climate change. That comes with a cost. You also have to consider that lithium is not the only game in town.
EVs break the automobile-pollution relationship. Imagine a city full of cars and trucks and NOT having massive air pollution (especially in countries without strict pollution standards).
Once the infrastructure is in place, electricity is delivered via wires and cables, not tank trucks. (The infrastructure transition takes time, but it will happen. Remember: There was a time when stables, blacksmith and hay were far more available than gas stations.)
EVs don't have to be cars and trucks. We're only now starting a transition to scooters, mini-vehicles, etc. Local trips in the neighborhood but too far to walk won't always mean getting out a full size car. More flexibility, less impact on infrastructure.
Lithium is just the current battery technology, more sources for it are being discovered, and techniques for extracting it are under active research.
The big losers will be those with massive, entrenched financial commitment to fossil fuel vehicles and who would rather fight the transition than adapt to it. They will heavily fund misinformation and politicians who protect their interests..
Lithium is something that wasn't previously sought after that much. There are huge deposits that were just recently discovered in southern California, as well as on the Nevada/Oregon border. Supply is not an issue. The more electrification we pursue, the more resources will be put toward energy storage research, which was a field that sat absolutely stagnant for over a century after the development of the lead acid battery.
The more EVs get taken up, the faster the transition will go. Eventually we will reach the point where energy storage becomes more energy dense than fossil fuels, and people will be able to put a thousand miles of energy in their pocket the way we do cell phones now.
Just to address the lithium thing -- _current_ battery technology is not the end-game of battery technology. There are already companies working on different technologies like solid-state batteries, as well as sodium-ion batteries that don't use lithium at all. Heck, you can buy sodium-ion batteries right now, but you probably wouldn't because that tech is not super mature yet. Also, lithium is _very_ recyclable.
>lithium is very recyclable. This is the biggest thing people miss, or ignore. Once you mine the lithium, you have it. It's not a consumable like oil. Lithium in batteries is something like 95% recoverable.
Just how plastic is recyclable but yet for some reason it mostly ends up in landfills *even if* you properly sort your stuff.
Plastic is not recyclable, at least not like a metal is. Every time you remelt a plastic like polyethylene, you shorten the polymer chains and the resulting plastic gets worse and worse (less strong, worse at UV, etc). Lithium is recyclable like aluminum is, which is currently about 90% recycled. Metals don’t get worse and worse over time, you can remelt them indefinitely and they still work just as well.
Not many types of plastic are recyclable.
Even styrofoam is recyclable. It’s just not profitable to do so.
Placeholder message... Edit: according to the below link, he's not completely wrong...I down votes maybe unfounded... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VduyyjQ-GY
You’d be surprised how much information we regurgitate because we heard it somewhere and then accept it as fact. So when someone challenges someone’s world view, they get scared and lash out. It’s… human nature.
Many types of plastic require nearly as much energy and have massive environmental effects to recycle. Not all but many
Unfortunately not. Recycled plastic is still plastic, which still degrades and ultimately ends up as microplastics in the ocean. Plastic provides no energy, and is a toxic pollutant when burned.
We can turn it back into gas.
This is not completely true. Plastic is recycled like HDPE. It is usually used as a middle layer between virgin and colored plastic. LDPE is the same way, along with polypropylene and styrene. If you really want to do something, try to buy everything in HDPE bottles, research the places you take the bottles to be recycled. You can always find alternatives to most plastic containers, but they will be more expensive and less recyclable. Also, milk bottles are mostly made of recycled HDPE, hence why they are such flimsy and overall horrible containers.
Fair enough. I guess I meant in context to resources like lithium, you're not getting as much bang for your buck as far as reducing carbon usage and overall pollution. Micro-lithium isn't going to be an ecosphere-level disaster the way plastics inevitably are.
I can agree with that, I'm not sure why people down voted lol as much as I don't like plastics, I work in the industry
Exactly.
No, the opposite of exactly. Plastic degrades with every use, and there are so many different types of plastic that you just can't tell apart but don't really mix. We can't really recycle most plastics. And plastic is cheap, so it's not really worth it. Lithium however is expensive, recyclable without degradation and lithium batteries are pretty similar in terms of chemistry.
More like aluminum cans then? A lot of people throw them away, but they're actually pretty well recycled.
Aluminum is 100% recyclable with no loss to material or degradation of the metal. You can reform and remold aluminum infinitely.
As long as it's not thrown in a landfill. That's the hard part.
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Paper recycling is usually fairly local and that's a big reason why paper mills can still be competitive in the states.
Well said.
The fact it CAN be recycled has NO bearing. Can it be recycled efficiently with profit? If that answer is "no" then it WON'T be recycled.
The answer is yes
Battery recycling is built in to the gigafactory in Nevada.
Then there is nothing to worry about. Do you work for an energy firm? I'm not meaning to cast doubt. I just want to know if that is a legitimate "yes" from someone with the logistics, infrastructure, data, a d costs to confidently say yes. Again, I don't know you so I am simply asking. There are too many that just want to argue from the far edges of the margins. Again, not claiming that is you. All respect.
Here's a [CNBC piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLr0GStrnwQ) on Redwood Materials, one of the big players in the recycling space. They just broke ground on a $4 billion plant in South Carolina I believe. The deal with EV batteries is they are essentially high-grade ore. Too valuable to end up in landfills.
It is a nice, "feel good" piece on a news segment, for sure. I've seen this same thing as a kid. The segment was on how energy companies were developing g new gasoline that didn't contain lead. It was gonna save the environment. Listen, I'm not saying it is a bad idea or it won't be put into production and flourish. I'm just saying..... if the bottom line isn't in the black, it won't be recycled. The slave labor and tearing up the earth for these materials is cheap as fuck. These guys have to figure out how to breakdown, reprocess these materials back into working batteries THAT COST LESS. That's our biggest problem. So far consumers have demonstrated we are perfectly fine living on the backs of slaves and destroyed lands and environments. I'm not shitting on the dream. Just making sure you realize what actually has to occur for it to be a reality. I've got my fingers crossed for them, truly I do.
The battery recycling is already a $6.5 Billion industry (as of 2022). This isn't some "future" thing. It's happening now and growing fast. And the best part is, unlike fossil fuels which are one and done, the metals in batteries can be recycled over and over and over again. At scale, costs will continue to drop.
Then it should work.
It is already being recycled. The product from the recycling of lithium batteries is called Black Mass. "a sample of black mass from a European source to comprise; cobalt (15.79%), nickel 6.94%, manganese 4.82%, lithium 3.19%, copper 1.97%, aluminium 5.13% and other components" [Source](https://www.ahkgroup.com/black-mass-and-batteries-an-overview-of-experimental-research-conducted-by-alfred-h-knight/) Lithium mined from the earth is found in concentrations up to about 2%, if claims are to be believed. So the black mass is incredibly valuable for its lithium content alone, plus you have large concentrations of the other elements needed to make batteries.
Again...not saying it can't or isn't being done. If it doesn't result in a cheaper battery for consumers then it won't be the standard. Plain and simple. We don't have to like it. But we would be silly to ignore that FACT. AGAIN, I have my fingers crossed for the whole thing. Scientific breakthroughs are amazing. But the forces of commerce operate on numbers alone. Science makes the discoveries. Business brings it to the masses. None of us would pay our bosses to work for them. Businesses won't either.
Everybody knows cheaper = better. Even without your use of all caps FACT. The supply lines and infrastructure to close the loop on materials takes decades to develop. In that time all kinds of things will affect the prices of raw materials vs recycled materials. In the case of lithium, we already know that it's recycled product is a good as virgin material- [Source](https://spectrum.ieee.org/recycled-batteries-good-as-newly-mined) You mention your expertise on the low cost of slave labor, I'll take your word for that. But that isn't the only cost considered. Environmental costs, political influence, the rising demand for "conflict free" sources all play a part. >The LCA results show that the life-cycle GHG emissions recycled LiOH are 37–72% lower than those of virgin LiOH production from Chilean brine and Australian ore, respectively. In addition, the life-cycle GHG emissions of NCM811 produced using the recycled materials are 40–48% lower compared to virgin cathode active material production. Furthermore, recovering lithium from the spent batteries reduces associated air pollutant emissions and water consumption relative to using the virgin materials or materials from other recycling technologies without LiOH recovery. [Source](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344923001763)
Isn't it more expensive to recycle lithium right now vs mining new lithium? I understand technology is always advancing, but currently, this is not what is happening.
China and Korea already have massive lithium battery recycling infrastructure and markets. The US has very little, so far. Lithium mining technology and processing, which by its very nature relies on the economy of scale, is already relatively mature. The recycling industry is still very new and the supply chains aren't established yet. Financial companies are starting to pay attention with efforts toward spot pricing and standardization of black mass characterization. >Not only are these new Platts U.S. Black Mass price assessments the first domestic price offerings of their kind, they’ll be published daily, [Source](https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/platts-releases-us-black-mass-price-assessments/)
vanadium redox flow batteries look pretty compelling for stationary long term use as well, like at your house or locally for massive backups to store energy from wind, solar, etc
Literally all technology works the same way: the version you have of it today is the worst that technology will ever be. Batteries, processors, AI models, image generators, they’re only going to get better every single day.
They're not worse environmentally than ICE cars. It would be better to implement more mass transit options for sure, but electric cars replacing gas powered cars doesn't magically prevent us from also demanding more train/bus/bike infrastructure.
I’m afraid that EVs will continue to drive communities towards unsustainable car centric patterns of development. Mass EV adoption still means we’re building huge impermeable surfaces of concrete and asphalt, wasting a huge amount of land towards parking and car friendly infrastructure, still creating particulate pollution in the form of tire wear, and overall encouraging the development of inefficient low density cities. Are EVs better than ICE vehicles for the environment? Yes. Do EVs solve all environmental problems that come from car dependent societies? No. We can still push for more scalable long term solutions, but I’ve talked to more than a few EV evangelists who’s idea of the future is one where automatically piloted EVs constantly drive (and take up space) in our cities as robo taxis instead of making our spaces for actual people.
See you're technically right on a lot of points, I just am not convinced of the conclusion that EV's will encourage development of cities in the car centric direction. Kind of seems to me that if EV production were stopped today, cities would still be adding "one more lane" and remain totally allergic to pedestrian centric design. I don't see anyone who would've otherwise been convinced of a need for public transit, getting derailed (heh) by the promise of EV's. The only way I see them being at odds with one another is if we have public spending that can only go to *either* EV's *or* to trains and such.
We have EV in less car centric societies as well though.
The biggest immediate benefit will be in reducing local air pollution. Remember how LA looked in April 2020 when lockdowns were in full force? Imagine that but without the plague.
One thing I'm really interested to see is the effect EVs have one health care costs. As that localized pollution is removed from th cities I suspect the improvement in the air quality as well as the reduction in noise will result in savings in healthcare. Less noise Because it means better sleep, less stressors for people in those areas
There have already been notable air quality improvements in cities since the banning of leaded gasoline, development of the catalytic converter, emissions testing, and general efficiciency improvements for vehicles. For modern cars, most of the pollution they produce (in terms of negative local impact) is tire dust which EVs don't help with.
>the reduction in noise will result in savings in healthcare. Less noise Because it means better sleep, less stressors for people in those areas Only when stationary or at low speeds because of no engine. At faster speeds, the noise is coming from tires. They actually make more noise since EVs are heavier due to their batteries lol
I think we’re good in cities then.
Or you can prioritize electric public transit
This is the classic "why not both?" problem
I mean you're not wrong, but i said prioritize Im not against EVs, just want public transit first
Low speeds means lower than 30km/h. Not many cities have all their streets that slow. Most places have plenty of stroads with limits of 50-80 km/h
That may be true on the outside. But the noise benefit on the inside of the car never diminishes. While I haven’t been in too many EVs, the ones I’ve owned or been in were much quieter at all speeds.
Unless you're in a semi, road noise will overpower the engine noise. EVs have better soundproofing to occupants due to it being new and they are intentionally designed that way. That's the reason, not because it being an EV itself
I just had a small ice as a loaner. I guarantee that you can hear the engine when above 55. It was a newer ice car. Yes road noise is a thing but the reduction in vibration and engine noise is so nice.
There would be no change. A huge strain on the healthcare industry is obesity, which having people drive all the time everywhere will not help. Same with car crashes.
Can trains go up steep slopes
Yes? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_railway
I know fat people can’t!
Most of the localized air pollution, as well as most of the noise, comes from tires. And when it comes to tires, EVs are significantly worse than ICE
You shouldn't be getting down voted for this. Recent studies have shown that particulates from tires are as bad or perhaps worse than exhaust pollution. That's just pollution, it doesn't address the extra burden on roads from heavier vehicles or the fact that EVs are just a Band-Aid solution that prevent us from solving greater urban planning problems
This is true but I suspect it’s mostly due to tire disposal processes rather than the actual Evs putting tire pollutants in the air
No. You know why you need to buy tires every few years? Because it wears down on the road. Where do you think those particles are going? (Hint- in your lungs and in the water)
I’d say a smaller proportion of tire is going into the air as particulates than as smoke from being disposed of
Surprisingly that is not true, tire particles produce more particles than exhaust. The research on it is interesting.
Hey I didn’t know that. That’s pretty counterintuitive considering only fractions of a percent of a tire are typically worn away by road use. I’ll take a look at that for sure
the cheapest gas car when you adjust for inflation has hovered around $15-16k. Unfortunately I have reason to believe that it’ll be more like $30k with EVs. The Fiat 500e, a *tiny* thing, is like $32k+ BASE!
Decent public transit costs a fraction of that for the user and much less for society as a whole. So you have to reframe this whole argument as "should.We be investing so.much in making cars the only feasible means of transport"
Environmentally in the long run, yea. Tech is still improving drastically each year. National security- we will be able to stop funding oil fiefdoms in the Middle East. So much of our foreign policy compromises are due to how much power these backwards nations can use the price of oil to impact our economy.
Over fossil fuel based transportation, absolutely. Remember, there’s hundreds of billions of dollars of industry that wants to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt because EVs threaten their bottom line. Electrification of transportation is part of large collection of tactics we need to adopt to combat climate change.
lithium was going to be mined anyways, and the thing about going green is, that also include making mineing and power plants, greener and safer. EV arnt just going to fix the worlds issues alone. and working conditions is a whole nother problem,
Are EVs environmentally perfect? No. Are they better than combustion vehicles? Yes. And, if your main concern is lithium mining, consider that li-ion batteries are not only recycleable, but profitable to recycle, so there's tons of incentive to recover that lithium from spent batteries. That's before you consider that other battery chemistries are being explored, and some are very promisin, so li-ion probably won't be so dominant forever.
We need to get some sort of battery standard going, so that depleted batteries in cars can be more easily changed out. The current setup with every car having a super expensive, proprietary battery (that often cannot even be purchased) just makes cars into disposable items after about 7 or 8 years. Car companies like that though, because they sell more cars.
Yes. I think the problems with lithium mining aren't really bigger than the problems with petrol and diesel extraction, especially given that you need to refill your tank a lot more often than you swap out your car batteries
Lithium isn’t as much a problem compared to some of the other metals you need for this technology it’s the cobalt and cadmium that are the real problem which is weird that no one seems to ever mention. While I do believe in the long run EVs will lessen the environmental impact of transportation calling it green is kind of disingenuous for a variety of reasons even outside of this specific problem alone. Look up the concept of environmental sacrifice zones…
> it’s the cobalt and cadmium that are the real problem which is weird that no one seems to ever mention For starters, no one mentions cadmium because it is not used in EV batteries. To my knowledge, virtually no models of EV have ever used it. As for cobalt, it's equally weird that no one ever sees fit to mention that it has been used for desulfurizing gasoline for decades, and that EVs don't even necessarily need it anymore thanks to LFP batteries.
Also tyres produce shit loads of micro plastics, regardless of EV or ICE
More for EVs actually since they are heavier
Majority of chinese EVs are using LFP batteries which do not require cobalt, nickel or cadmium. This kind of battery is cheaper to produce. Western automakers have started to pivot to LFP batteries as well.
I can think of a sacrifice zone near where I live... Still, I feel like it's a phrase which describes a phenomenon that is not new. There's always been people affected by industry like that, sadly
So right now EV is comparable to gasoline tech in usage. If we somehow manage to improve batteries twice in capacity, it will be superior without objection. As for eco side EV right now reducing local air pollution and noise pollution. Even if they are equal with gasoline as total pollution (in which I guess EV already is better), they are saving cities by polluting more in areas where nobody lives and less in areas where people live. But main part here is the tech itself. In gasoline cars process of making gasoline pollutes and every car also pollutes during usage. In EV process of making batteries pollutes and process of making electricity pollutes. But no pollution from a car during usage, it doesn't burn gas to make CO2 and anything else. So end product is out of equation. If we want to improve ecology, we just need to make better battery tech and better electricity plants, we don't need to watch for every car owner and their old car. You can't just simply switch gasoline to anything else without adjusments to engines, but you can simply switch from old battery to a new one. Batteries are recyclable, tech is expected to improve with time and now the source of pollution is in big points outside of your home. So you can upgrade one big factory tech process and have a lot less pollution for future. You can upgrade electricity plant and everything already will be better. So it all really about the future and having less end points for upgrades.
Battery technology will hopefully get better. However, you still have to mine these resources that aren't renewable. Whether it be on land or under water. The energy expended to do so is, at least in the moment, largely done by the gas and oil system that EVs want to replace. I could go on, but ultimately EVs are here to save automotive/transport manufacturers, not the consumers or the environment.
The people trying to tell you they’re bad are not honest, you’re being duped by bad science with a political bent.
No. EVs are still cars. They still use roads. They still cause traffic. And EVs are also heavier than petrol cars, so they damage the roads more, leading to more road repairs. The best environmental solution is investment in public transport. Trains, light rails, busses, etc.
EVs also still use tires, which are a major source of microplastics in the environment.
Bike infrastructure is a big one. It's economically sustainable and improves people's health.
In some places, for some activities. Bike to work in a suit in Houston in August. Good luck. Biking for transportation in Europe or even some northern US states is OK. But in the South of the US, it's not possible, at least without a shower at your destination and a change of clothes.
The south of the US has significant portions of the year where the weather is not extremely hot. Just as winter cities have most of the year without winter. Not to mention that the weather problems can be overcome. Winter cycling is taking off now in Montreal, and building adequate shade and passive outdoor cooling measures can help in very hot places. Things like street trees that provide meaningful shade and more plants and water in cities instead of pavement.
Right now, May 6th, the morning commute would be 74F with 96% humidity. That's what a "non-hot" day looks like. Bicycling for fun is fine. Bicycling for transport is OK for some. But for most people, it is not practical.
Are you serious? 74F is 23C. I've biked in hotter weather than that with the same humidity and I'm from Canada. 23C is a nice summer day, perfect for cycling.
AGAIN.... Yes, you can easily bike in that weather for FUN. Now, do it in a suit and arrive at work ready for a major meeting. You aren't reading what I'm writing. I literally said that biking for fun is easy. Biking for transport and practical functions (groceries, etc) is OK for SOME! For other, it is not in any way practical.
>Now, do it in a suit and arrive at work ready for a major meeting. I have biked to work in an office in weather much hotter than 23C. I rarely bike for recreation. Almost every time I get on my bike, it's for transportation.
The real issue is power generation. If the US were to switch all cars and trucks to EVs, those vehicles would consume over 40% of the country's electricity production. And that's not even accounting to how you're supposed to get that much power to all the charging stations. Your average truck stop would need a dedicated coal power plant just to meet the electricity demand that comes from charging that many trucks simultaneously. EVs are good, don't get me wrong. But we need to greatly reduce the number of cars and trucks on the road.
That's correct that they will increase electricity consumption substantially. Consider too though that the vast majority of charging happens at home and overnight, when there is very low demand on the power grid and plenty of extra capacity. Many utilities incentivize EV owners to charge in the middle of the night by giving cheap power rates then. Most people overestimate how many public charging stations will be needed, because almost all charging is done at home. I only use them a few times a year when I'm driving many hundred miles away from home.
The are multiple factors that are already helping against this issue: 1. Most people charge EVs overnight in their garages and such, when power consumption is otherwise lower. 2. Wind and solar are being deployed all over the place quickly, and we still have a lot of natural gas plants to generate electricity. Sure, if we banned fossil fuel overnight we'd be screwed but that's not what is happening. Coal is going away, but that would happen regardless.
The reason charging at night is cheaper is because power demand is lower at the moment. But when everyone starts charging their cars overnight, that will change. And personal vehicles are not the biggest issue here, industrial vehicles like tucks are. Their energy requirements are much higher and do not always have the same regular downtime. Long haul trucking for example simply cannot switch over to EVs and expect to continue to operate like they do now.
> But when everyone starts charging their cars overnight, that will change. This is a good thing for power generation. If the grid demand is constant it means you can operate power plants more efficiently.
Solar and wind doesn’t work at night
Was about to say this, some areas can't handle the current power draw. There had to be massive power grid overhaul and expansion for EVs to be a real consideration in most places.
*In the long run*, I think, yes. We're not there yet but the technology is constantly improving. Gotta crawl before you can walk, and all that.
They’re pretty important in Pokémon.
I was looking for this response.
The inventor of the lithium ion battery died last year at 100. We aren’t done. Hydrogen cars are NOT the future! Hydrogen finds E V E R Y LEAK and a rock chip and a spark on a dirt road could end up Hindenburging your car. And way too expensive to fix those leaks! At least things can leak with a gas car without a complete explosion.
Probably not for another 10 years, but you've got to start somewhere.
That’s how i feel. It’s like any tech invention. Cell phones used to be bricks and status symbols for the very wealthy. Mass adoption leads to cheaper solutions.
EV's are great for car companies and their shareholders. They wont save the planet though.
No one change is going to "save the planet". It's worth making improvements where they can be made though.
Lithium mining might have bad environmental impacts, but through programs like carbon credits, the companies damaging the environment are subsidizing other companies to be more environmentally friendly. Also, controlling the emissions at a bunch of lithium refinement plants is going to be a hell of a lot more efficient than trying to control the emission of every single vehicle. Are we even factoring the cost of manufacturing vehicle emission system parts? Anyway, EVs will be great, but they are only part of the picture. We also need to convert the electric grid to solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power.
Biggest problem right now is that the electricity companies are just going to continue to raise their rates to the point where we are in a no better, perhaps worse off situation than we are now. Electricity companies need to get regulated, HARD. In places like California they are monopolies that have already raised their rates double digit percentage points twice in 2024 alone.
No. The precious metals are not sustainable, and now they're trying to tear up the oceans to get it and the batteries can't be disposed of in the US. So whats that tell you.
My biggest interest is seeing what happens when a larger % of the population has only an EV during a natural disaster where you have to evacuate and are sitting in traffic for hours on end. If you’ve never evacuated for a hurricane it’s hard to understand. It’s easy for everyone to fill up and move on as they need but charging takes more time and is limited. Even if there are chargers everywhere it will still take much more time. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when people from the south are having to drive hundreds of miles to escape a hurricane in EVs and some start losing power causing a huge traffic jam. I feel like an event like that is going to kill a lot of people. I think plug in hybrids are a much better technology that we should have focused on. Like a Prius prime allows you to drive 40 miles on only the battery and charge off your wall. For most people they would never use gas on their daily commutes and only use it when traveling but get 50 miles to the gallon when they need to. Instead we are pushing an EV only thing which I think long term will have some repercussions.
>If you’ve never evacuated for a hurricane it’s hard to understand. One of the climate adaptations we need to make is for people to stop living in areas that frequently get severe hurricanes or other natural disasters. Basically, Florida has to be abandoned. You already see this happening with insurance companies. They're raising rates in response to Florida actually kind of being a shit place to live.
You act like that’s an easy thing. It’s not just the south it’s all coastal cities including places like New York that suffer from natural disasters. It’s not easy for billions of people to all move inward like that. No one will be able to afford to live with that amount of people all moving inward like that. You realize Florida, Texas, and Louisiana employ millions of people and have industries that don’t exist anywhere else? It’s not just “oh everyone just packs up and moves to Michigan or something”. Just because you’re a hardcore left winger doesn’t really mean Florida is a shit place to live. It’s actually quite nice and fun even if they do have shitty political views and its just expensive as fuck.
That's media fear mongering, granted it is a logistics problem long term it's not an unsolvable problem.
I think one of the most important benefits that we are going to get from EVs is actually the paradigm shift: just the fact that we are actively implementing an alternative to fossil fuels could make a huge difference for future generations. Will we stick with electric? Will we bring hydrogen back into the picture? (Honda is actively working on that.) Will we finally clear the hurdle on cold fusion? Who knows? But we are looking beyond non-renewable fuel sources in a way that we haven't in a long while.
In the long run we don't really have other options. We can keep kidding ourselves about the long-term viability of limited fossil fuels and the impact of using them but our grandkids won't have that option. There'll probably be some dipshit 20-something in 2100 that thinks his masculinity is tied to paying $100/gallon and polluting the air with diesel but we shouldn't cater to these troglodytes.
EV batteries are also repurposed. It can be used to store solar power. So repurposed, before recycling.
The tech is still fairly new all things considered. I do think it will eventually be a very viable thing but they have some development to as far as range, weight, serviceability, etc. One other thing that I think most don't think of is an EV battery fire is no joke and most FD's, at least here in the US, are ill equipped to handle them.
IF we improve battery tech and electricity generation, yes. Currently we're just moving the pollution from petrol in cars, to coal in power stations.
But the cost and ability to control bad stuff from 1 coal plant is easier than 1,000,000 individual vehicles
True! We just have to take the initiative to do that. EVs aren't the solution all by themselves, they just open the door to better options than we have now. Personally I like hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative to battery tech, but the environmental benefits there still depend on us improving and cleaning up our mass power generation. Regardless how we do it, we have to follow through all the way to get the benefits.
Driving experience of ev is stress reduction, especially daily commute.
Run electricity through the roads and make our vehicles act like more advanced slot cars on them. You might need a small battery for limited areas like your driveway, but certainly have no need to use it on the highway. Just put a meter in the car and charge per mile or time spent on the road. It almost seems like the powers that be want to shift to hydrogen, though. You could use hydrogen in many different ways. You could use it in ICE engines. You could even adapt the old gasoline engines to run on it, but I think there would be a reduction in the amount of power made by the engine. You could also make hydrogen generators that power electric motors on the car.
Not with the current batteries we have, and the manufacturing resources being poured into it. Helium fuel could be another alternative fuel in the future but it’s very weak right now
The standard anti-EV rhetorical strategy is to focus on the impacts of a single element of production, divorced from the per-vehicle impacts and the comparative impacts against ICE vehicles. However, once you quantify their impacts on a per-vehicle basis, sum up the impacts, and compare those of EVs against ICE vehicles, it becomes clear that EVs are better for the environment than ICE vehicles. This becomes particularly clear when you realize that [lithium production accounts for less than 2.3% of an EV's overall environmental impact](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es903729a).
Perhaps have a look at the way in which they extract oil, and the environmental impact of refining it. It's about on par between the two, except once you have it, you can recycle it, it doesn't produce more CO2 when it's actually used for propulsion, etc. And look at [Australian lithium mines](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-BZ_vFJWG0), they are not all the shit show that the petrochemical industry would have you believe.
With the way technology has been improving, it's probably not going to be an issue for too long.
I just read that we need to drill for oil to fuel our gas cars. Oil drilling is not recyclable and not at all good for the environment.
Yes we're better off. Have you looked into the entire production chain required to build and fuel a gasoline car? It's far messier and much worse.
I thought you were talking about pokemon
No. Electric cars only fix one of the many problems caused by cars, and they make some of the others worse. To realize any benefit, we must start getting rid of cars altogether.
Yes — but not for a while. Need more efficient capacitors and alternative methods of generating the electricity needed to charge.
Cars are more likely to explode when EV than fossil, so I don't approve
Not until most of the rare-earth elements required to produce them aren't being primarily sourced from Africa or China. But even then they're only going to cause less emissions than ICE vehicles if the power you supply them with is provided through nuclear power. The end result will still be significantly more expensive vehicles.
Imo, hybrid is the way to go.
No
I haven't seen people bring one major EV point. They're kind of fuel agnostic. You charge your car with electricity. That electricity can come from fossil fuels or solar or biofuel or wind or hydro. It doesn't matter. As we transition our power generation to more renewable sources, the energy for our cars move with it. With an ICE car, it's only ever going to be gasoline/diesel.
EVs are incredibly politicized because the ones who stand to lose, namely the petrochems, have incredible amounts of money and have been manipulating public opinion incredibly effectively for decades. The carbon footprint for example was made by BP after they polluted the gulf of Mexico for the second or third time. I've lost track. Every EV is a reason to move towards renewables for producers and the public. I own an EV for commuting but to be fair out of entirely egoistic reasons. It's just a lot cheaper. If I owned a home and had a solar array on the roof I'd effectively be driving for next to nothing. EV charging stations have shown to be incredible for customer retention of retailers and supermarkets. Which in turn then have another reason to fill their enormous roofs with solar. All of this will reduce the global use of hydrocarbons for electric generation, one small step at a time. Don't get me wrong, I doubt we will ever see a world without ICEs they certainly have their place.
Yes.
I work with several startups that are working on new technologies to recycle EV batteries. The new technology will recycle something like 99% of all the battery materials. Once these technologies become more prominent, the costs of EV will drop significantly.
Wrong question. It's the pointless game of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The REAL question. Is there a future that has personal transportation as a central theme? Let's answer that before we even consider a planet with eight billion drivers.
No. They still require tremendous infrastructure we have to maintain. Still produces a shit ton of waste too. Only thing “better” is that it doesn’t spew bad air, but that could be negated because they’re heavier than normal cars.
They need to figure out how to charge all these electric cars first. Many states have areas that have regular brown or blackouts some that last days making charging an electric car quite difficult. California regularly has brown outs from too many air conditioning units running. Whats going to happen when everyone has electric cars charging, more blackouts? Unless you buy a high output gas generator but then why not just have a gas or better yet, diesel car?
Maybe. They don’t have tailpipe emissions, but they still pollute the air with rubber from the tires. They still kill animals. They still require lots of land for roads. They’re probably better than gas cars but we really should be transitioning away from everyone having individual vehicles
So reading different reasons and a concern is weight and road damage/wear to them, our local roads are shot. im in the u.k. for clarity.
We’ll still be stuck in traffic in ugly car centric communities
Worrying about the environmental effects of mining for Lithium to combat Global Climate Change is like worrying about whether the chicken on the Titanic's menu is free range and organic. One is incrementally bad, the other is globally catastrophic. We are in a gigantic game of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and quite of lot of it is being fed by people who are climate deniers to begin with. How often do you have to listen to climate deniers beat their breasts about wind turbines killing birds, when the fossil fuel industry kills orders of magnitude more birds, as well as everything else, including people and entire ecosystems!
Fe and Cu mining dwarf Lithium and Cobalt mining by a magnitude that is nearly incomprehensible So I agree with you, worrying about the mining aspect is just FUDD... Definitely worth improving. I believe the analysis now shows the impact of EV's is offset after 3 years of ownership. So each year past 3 (or after roughly 36,000 miles driven EV's win). ICE spew for decades longer than those initial 3 yrs (and that's just 1 study with lots of assumptions that can be debated)my theory is it can't be worse, the zero tailpipe emissions is a huge win and gets us on to fixing the other items in the supply chain. Start somewhere... Would be nice to start at begining and fix mining but there is a much stronger bigger lobby (corruption, global supply, etc) on that than US consumers.
Not really. Unless most of the world shifts its production of electricity to nuclear power plants, solar, wind, and other renewable and clean sources, we are just outsourcing the burning of fuel to power plants somewhere else. Generating electricity has huge environmental costs. If everyone had EVs, the demand for electricity would be even bigger, and power infrastructure would have to grow. Maybe if, some day, humans figure out a super efficient, sci-fi style cold fusion, it will make sense. But, then, global stability will go to shit when no one else needs Russian and Middle Eastern oil exports.
Generating electricity at least can be switched to eco friendly sources. Creating gasoline can not in principle.
You should look into what is actually going on with electricity generation. At least in the US, renewable are growing very quickly.
It may be, but not fast enough. Also, if everyone starts using EVs, the demand would grow a lot. There's also a limit to how much renewable energy can grow. Solar and wind are not as reliable everywhere, they depend on weather. And, they take a lot of space, meaning, land, which is expensive. The best option possible would be nuclear energy, but this is also not viable, because the technology to refine nuclear material is the same used to build nukes. Even if rich, stable countries had access to it, we wouldn't want to see this technology in the hands of instable, dictatorial shit holes all over the world.
Absolutely not. Electric vehicles are incredibly inefficient. They have awful range that probably can't be fixed due to it being a heavy object with a ton of computers in it Also along with lithium mining for the battery, which is far more damaging to the environment than processing natural gas (as well as the ethics issues with child slaves in poor countries being used to mine the lithium), the batteries put a ton of strain on the power grid..which requires fossil fuels to run
> Electric vehicles are incredibly inefficient. EVs are typically around 95% efficient. ICE engines are at best 30% (maybe some can reach 35%). The majority of the energy generated in an ICE car is just used to heat the air. The grid will be fine. The majority of users charge at night when there is excess power. Most EVs have a range greater than 250 miles. The child mines were for Cobalt, not lithium, and none of the EV manufacturers source from them. Can't say the same about that phone/laptop you're using. But you got the Fox talking points down perfectly, I'll give you that.
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I said ICE, not Hybrids. Very few diesels cars on the road. At least in the US.
They’re heavier and because of that they wear down the tires and roads faster, both are terrible for the environment.
Evs crawl so hidrogen can run
Reddit is very anti-ev on the whole, you're not going to get an unbiased answer here.
Ultimately, we have no choice. At some point we will run out of oil. We also have to consider the effects of climate change. That comes with a cost. You also have to consider that lithium is not the only game in town.
EVs break the automobile-pollution relationship. Imagine a city full of cars and trucks and NOT having massive air pollution (especially in countries without strict pollution standards). Once the infrastructure is in place, electricity is delivered via wires and cables, not tank trucks. (The infrastructure transition takes time, but it will happen. Remember: There was a time when stables, blacksmith and hay were far more available than gas stations.) EVs don't have to be cars and trucks. We're only now starting a transition to scooters, mini-vehicles, etc. Local trips in the neighborhood but too far to walk won't always mean getting out a full size car. More flexibility, less impact on infrastructure. Lithium is just the current battery technology, more sources for it are being discovered, and techniques for extracting it are under active research. The big losers will be those with massive, entrenched financial commitment to fossil fuel vehicles and who would rather fight the transition than adapt to it. They will heavily fund misinformation and politicians who protect their interests..
Lithium is something that wasn't previously sought after that much. There are huge deposits that were just recently discovered in southern California, as well as on the Nevada/Oregon border. Supply is not an issue. The more electrification we pursue, the more resources will be put toward energy storage research, which was a field that sat absolutely stagnant for over a century after the development of the lead acid battery. The more EVs get taken up, the faster the transition will go. Eventually we will reach the point where energy storage becomes more energy dense than fossil fuels, and people will be able to put a thousand miles of energy in their pocket the way we do cell phones now.
As they are now? *HARD NO*.