Electric Vehicle Problems Still Ignored
The world is no stranger to grand visions of a greener, more sustainable tomorrow. Electric vehicles, with their whispering hum and zero emissions, were hailed as the revolutionary answer to our environmental woes. However, as the excitement around these dynamic machines reaches a fever pitch, it’s time to shed light on a rather disconcerting truth: the problems plaguing electric vehicles have been purposefully swept under the rug, ignored by the masses as we zoom towards an electrified future. In this article, we dare to venture into the murky waters of the unspoken issues surrounding electric vehicles, shedding a neutral light on the inconvenient truths that have slipped through the cracks, rather than following the herd blinded by the headlights of this promising technology. Stay tuned as we unveil the untold story, raising pertinent questions and rethinking the narrative surrounding the much-acclaimed electric vehicle industry.
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Battery-powered vehicles actually predate gasoline-powered cars. The first electrically powered carriages and cars appeared in the 1830s.
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During the early 1900s, electric cars were in many ways more popular than gasoline-powered vehicles and outsold all other cars quite handily. In part it was their reliability and the fact that gasoline-powered vehicles were smelly, difficult to drive and even more difficult to start. Range was not much of a problem as people were not yet used to commuting or wandering more than a few short kilometres from home. By the middle of the 1910s, however, the market share for electric cars was quickly lost to gasoline-powered cars. It was General Motors — or, more accurately, Cadillac — that killed the electric car for the first time by introducing self-starters.
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In the time since the early 20th century, electric cars have rarely been seen as anything but an anachronism championed by a small lunatic fringe, little more than curiosities that occasionally merited an article in Mechanix Illustrated.
In the 1990s, General Motors famously developed and leased out a fleet of electric cars and then even more famously crushed them despite the pleas of their drivers and the public at large.
This brings us to the present and the resurgence of interest in electric cars. Hybrids have been on the road for some time now and full electric cars with a useful range and speed range are just months away from the dealers’ showrooms.
That said, I really wish the electric car would die once more. It is not that I relish a world laid low by the toxic flatulence of the petrochemical nightmare the gasoline-powered car has created. It is, in fact, because of that.
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The introduction of electric cars does more harm than good and is not a solution to any environmental problems. For a start, the energy that propels electric cars down the road has to come from somewhere. While their owners are blissfully sleeping, content in the knowledge that their contribution to a healthy environment is in the garage charging overnight, the coal- and gas-fired electrical generation plants are working overtime burning petrochemicals to transform into electricity.
Some supporters will argue that these plants can be made more efficient and will then produce less pollution than gasoline-powered cars, but that does not take into account the toxic batteries that power these cars. The raw materials for these batteries are mined in Canada, refined in China and packaged in Japan and then sent back to us to be used until they die. Then we have to dispose of them as toxic waste. None of this is environmentally friendly.
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The cars themselves are made from lightweight plastics and composites with very little recyclable materials incorporated.
In a sense, a 1958 Edsel is by far more environmentally friendly as the materials from which it is made can be almost completely and easily recycled.
The worst part is that the automakers are rushing to create more and more of these cars in a huge green-washing campaign while real solutions are ignored. The most environmentally friendly cars and those we should all be demanding would be powered by hydrogen. They would be fully and easily repaired with a minimum service life of 20 years or more and could be easily recycled once they die. If you doubt a carmaker’s ability to create a vehicle with a 20-year shelf life, just think of aircraft. A 20-year-old Cessna is not considered especially old.
1. “Unplugged Realities: The Myriad Challenges That Electric Vehicles Encounter”
Electric vehicles (EVs) have undoubtedly gained popularity in recent years as an alternative mode of transportation. However, behind this widespread fascination lies a variety of challenges that threaten to limit the success and widespread adoption of EVs. Understanding and addressing these hurdles is crucial for the future of clean and sustainable transportation.
1. Limited Range: One of the main obstacles facing EVs is their limited range compared to traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. Most EVs currently on the market have a range between 100-300 miles per charge, which creates range anxiety for potential buyers. Although this range is sufficient for routine daily commutes, it falls short when it comes to long-distance travel or even spontaneous road trips.
2. Lack of Charging Infrastructure: Another significant challenge for EVs is the lack of an extensive charging infrastructure. Unlike conventional gas stations that are scattered across cities and highways, electric charging stations are still relatively scarce. This scarcity poses a problem not only for EV owners but also for potential buyers who are deterred by the fear of running out of charge on long journeys or during emergency situations. The limited availability of charging stations hinders the scalability and convenience of EVs.
2. “Silent Roadblocks: Ignoring the Inherent Issues Hindering Electric Vehicles
The planned rapid transition to electric vehicles has major challenges. Schalk Cloete compiles them into a list of ten, including: preserving our car-centric cities preserves its inefficiencies and societal costs; it works against much of the personal “behaviour change” we need; though BEVs (battery electric vehicles) are better in cities, when infrastructure costs are included they are less efficient than hybrids and modern ICEs for many driving needs (i.e. there are cheaper ways for cars to cut emissions); BEVs require about six times more critical minerals than conventional cars, along with the mining ramp up challenges and consequences that entails; the optimal charging patterns BEVs require are badly matched with variable wind and solar; the competition for investment with proven wealth creation pathways that developing nations need. At its heart the argument is that the CO2 avoidance costs for BEVs will exceed $100/ton, both in the medium and long term. That means steering money away from the many other cheaper ways to cut emissions that could be exploited first. There are better ways to reduce transport emissions that blindly swapping fossil cars for BEVs, says Cloete.
The world has a strange infatuation with cars. That is part of the reason why the electric car has become the poster child for the fight against climate change, despite its rather limited potential to avoid CO2 emissions.
Behind the rapid growth in battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales lie a wide range of supporting policies. And behind these policies are governments that want to tap every last bit of marketing value from this highly visible climate action poster child. This is why pure BEV companies are now worth as much as the entire legacy auto industry, even though these companies (mainly Tesla) sell only about 1% of global light-duty vehicles.
The growth in global electric vehicle sales / IMAGE SOURCE
This article will cover ten fundamental problems with BEVs as a leading climate change mitigation option. The aim is not to discredit electric cars as a sustainable technology (they can certainly avoid CO2 and reduce fossil fuel dependence). Instead, this article aims to illustrate the huge disconnect between the ongoing BEV investment boom and the questionable societal benefit of the technology.
Problem 1: a costly band-aid on our car problem
Enthusiasts like to equate the rise of the electric car with the rise of the car itself. A little over a century ago, mass-produced automobiles quickly displaced horses as the primary mode of transport. This is not surprising as the car is a superior transportation medium in almost every way.
This image of how rapidly cars displaced horses is often used to predict a similar displacement of the internal combustion engine with electric cars / IMAGE SOURCE
But applying this analogy to BEVs displacing internal combustion engine (ICE) cars is flawed. First off, as we’ll see in the next three problems, BEVs are nowhere near as superior to ICE cars as cars are to horses. More importantly, though: they’re still cars.
Cars remain cars, regardless of what’s under the hood / IMAGE: adapted from Unsplash.
Back to our analogy, BEVs are just heavier and shinier horses that eat smaller quantities of a more expensive and (mostly) cleaner feed. The real horse-banishing automobiles in this analogy are the twin forces of virtual mobility and human-oriented city design.
The real personal mobility revolution / IMAGE SOURCE: Wikipedia and Dutchreview
Indeed, as we’ll see in the next section, the urban car is one of the biggest inefficiencies in our economy. Cities built for people that fully exploit emerging virtual mobility solutions (like Facebook’s Horizon Workrooms) are the solution to this massive problem. Not BEVs.
[VIDEO: “Horizon Workrooms – Remote Collaboration Reimagined”]
Just imagine living in a neighbourhood where the car-filled streets are replaced by peaceful walkways and cycle paths lined with greenery. Every service your household needs is within easy walking/cycling distance, and there are happy and friendly neighbours all around. Thus, even though you love working and playing virtually in the ever-expanding metaverse, your physical environment remains so attractive that you naturally spend lots of time outside in the sun, interacting with real humans.
Yes, transitioning from our current car-centred reality to such a high-tech human-oriented future has its challenges. But this does not justify our current trajectory of patching an expensive BEV band-aid over our massive car problem. Indeed, a global transition to human-friendly cities will take care of all the problems BEVs aspire to solve as well as many much more severe problems they never can.
Problem 2: promoting the worst car niches
BEV competitiveness spans a broad range. In some niches, BEVs offer an attractive solution. In others, they will never be competitive. And here’s the problem: the niches where BEVs make the most sense are those that bring out the worst of the car.
The first of these niches is the suburban commuter, where a BEV with a relatively small battery pack is a compelling solution (especially for two-car families). I updated my earlier estimate of the total societal costs of the car commuter philosophy and arrived at a whopping $23,100/year (see below). This is about half the average wage of rich-world citizens. If we assume a worker creates about twice as much value as his salary, it means that about a quarter of the value created by the average commuter is cancelled by the costs of the (stressful and frustrating) model of getting to work.
An estimate of the annual societal cost of the single-person-in-car daily commute. See Notes at end of article for more detail
Other forms of urban car transport are no better. Consider one of the most iconic symbols of a car-centred society: the supermall. People haul their 2.5-ton SUVs many miles to this structure to go and pick up 0.05 tons of stuff (much of it being wasteful impulse buys). Another highly ironic use-case for the urban SUV is burning 15,000 kcal of fuel to go and burn 500 kcal of fat by running like a hamster on a treadmill in a distant gym.
A typical mall and its gigantic parking lot / IMAGE SOURCE
Then, we have the stereotypical “soccer mom” who spends her days as a children’s chauffeur. In an efficient society where kids can freely move around by foot or bicycle, our soccer mom could be doing so many more useful and fulfilling things with her life than stifling her children’s independence. Unfortunately, this ultra-inefficient model is often the only option in car-centred societies as distances are so vast and walking/cycling is too dangerous (partly due to all the other soccer moms in oversized SUVs distracted by their frustrated kids fighting in the back.)
[VIDEO: “Why We Won’t Raise Our Kids in Suburbia (and moved to the Netherlands instead)”]
The luxury car segment also deserves a special mention. BEVs work in this segment because the cost of a large battery pack is moderate relative to all the bells and whistles on a luxury car (the quiet performance of electric drive also fits the luxury image). But while urban cars are a highly inefficient part of society, luxury urban cars ramp up the inefficiency by several additional notches. They provide essentially the same service for a lot more money and don’t even make their owners happier.
Thus, BEVs not only promise to perpetuate the inherent inefficiency of car-centred cities; they also naturally promote the niches where cars cost society the most dearly.
Problem 3: low competitiveness in many niches
For a long time, the magical battery cost point when electric cars were supposed to sweep aside the old ICE horses was $100/kWh. Now, it’s apparently $60/kWh. But all this is just as silly as the notion of “grid parity” for wind and solar power. Like wind and solar lose value with higher market shares, BEVs lose competitiveness as their market share grows into less favourable niches.
On the positive end of the competitiveness spectrum is the suburban commuter car. These vehicles can get away with small battery packs, do all their driving in stop-and-go city traffic where electric drive excels, and operate exclusively on cheap slow charging at home.
On the other end, we have niches like unstructured, long-distance journeys for holidays or business. These vehicles need large battery packs, do most of their driving on highways where the ICE is at its best, and rely more on public chargers (which can easily cost more than gasoline).
To illustrate, let’s compare BEVs and hybrids in the medium and long-term future. As shown on the left of the graph below, BEVs are competitive in the niches where they make sense. However, when we get to large, long-distance vehicles on the right, they quickly lose competitiveness.
A levelised driving cost comparison for BEV and hybrid drivetrains, fuel, and CO2 emissions ($100/ton) applicable to 2025. The left of the graph represents small commuter cars and the right represents large rural vehicles. See the Notes for detailed assumptions.
The main drivers of lost BEV competitiveness when moving from left to right in the graph are the need for a larger battery pack, the increase in average electricity costs from more public charging, and a narrowing efficiency advantage on the highway.
It is worth pointing out that BEV fuel costs exceed that of a hybrid over most of the investigated range. The common assumption that electric cars always have much lower fuel costs is only true when we consider older inefficient ICE cars, almost no fast charging, and large gasoline taxes. Correct for those factors, and the BEV fuel-cost benefit disappears (and even reverses). The CO2 cost difference is also small (we’ll return to this in Problem 5).
Another common misconception, illustrated by the graph below, is that BEV competitiveness will rapidly improve over the coming years. In fact, the most dramatic battery cost declines are already behind us, and hybrid technology has plenty of headroom for further development (see Notes).
A levelised driving cost comparison for BEV and hybrid drivetrains, fuel, and CO2 emissions ($100/ton) at technological maturity. The left of the graph represents small commuter cars and the right represents large rural vehicles. See the Notes for detailed assumptions.
Furthermore, if we have any sense, the demand for urban driving toward the left of the graph will greatly diminish over the coming decades, whereas demand for free-spirited highway driving toward the right may actually increase. Let’s discuss the right of the graph in more detail now.
