This video did a great job of assessing the common complaint that EVs are ultimately worse for the environment than gasoline cars because making batteries takes a great deal of energy: At ~9:20, it also suggests that PHEVs are ultimately the best way to go altogether, in this particular regard anyway.
to me, the whole argument is a straw man. battery production will continually increase in efficiency. and there are plenty of reasons not to burn fossil fuels besides emissions
The former he did not attempt to quantify here, but even at current battery-manufacturing efficiencies, EVs quickly pull ahead. The latter (plenty of other reasons not to burn petroleum) is another one of my pet peeves: We need to preserve petroleum for making fertilizers, lubricants, medicines, plastics (etc., and I do mean etc.!), in both the present and in future generations. Burning it is the absolute worst thing we can do with petroleum!
Nice video. As he points out, many generous assumptions given on the ICE side. He could also mention that there is a strong association with plug-in owners and home solar, further offsetting their carbon footprint.
EV/PHEV just move the pollution further from the exhaust pipe but net result is lower total pollution as a whole.
I’d agree with this statement without the word “just” in there. Well, that plus the fact that there is increasingly zero energy-production emissions at the other end of an EV’s so-called “longer tailpipe.” Wind and home-solar power are especially rising rapidly.
What was not addressed is cobalt mining, which is truly horrible in the geopolitical sense. Mostly comes from Congo in Africa and is horribly exploitative business. But what we need to keep in mind is that battery tech is in flux and will change, most likely for the better in most ways. Fossil fuels are not changing at all. They are what they are and we know what happens when we extract and burn them. Similar argument can be presented for power generation. It can, does and will continue to change, presumably to include more renewables, which will directly effect the EV's carbon footprint. The benefits of EV transport go way beyond today. This video is great at illustrating that even today EVs are superior in terms of carbon footprint, but the important thing is that they are superior in a less myopic sense for humans to continue to inhabit this beautiful planet and not have to resort to living on Mars.
Yes. Tesla and others are working to reduce cobalt usage in their batteries, in favor of nickel and aluminum IIRC, for exactly this reason.
As I stated, battery tech is in flux and is in the infancy of development, really, as far as EV transport is concerned. We have many doors to open with batteries, whereas with fossils, we are at the dead end and the supplies are not unlimited.
