By Mary Goetsch
Aurora, Ill.
I think the real problem on the shift to electric vehicles (EV) is the costly manufacture of their batteries. I admit to electric-car anxiety. My fear warrants trying to rely on the car I have, a 2016 Chevy Spark with 25,000 miles, for the rest of my life. I would be too afraid to be driving a highly-computerized car, let alone the sticker prices escalating to an alarming degree. There is an autoworkers’ (United Auto Workers) strike now.
The bottom-line analysis against EV is there no saving on climate pollution. “Skeptic Magazine” Vol 28 No. 2 (June) 2023 devotes most of the issue to energy matters. To manufacture one EV produces 16 tons of carbon dioxide, compared to the five tons to manufacture in making one gasoline-powered car. Put another way, one needs to drive an EV 60,000 miles before the production cost of batteries is overcome on the balance sheet.
The electric grid demand cannot be met by solar and wind energy along, so the same problem of clean energy is not solved by EV. In addition, the mining for needed rare earth elements could compound our transportation challenges because the U.S. does not have enough of our own mines for cobalt and lithium, which requires 2.2 million liters of water to produce one ton of lithium used in manufacture.
The huge water requirements for mining lithium affects local farming in Argentine, Chile, and Bolivia. There are other critical elements in short supply for technology in other areas, as well; neodymium, erbium, and europium are needed for use in magnets, fiber optic cables, and luminescent materials, respectively. (Science News, January 14, 2023.)
Chicago Tribune in the September 2, 2023 edition, ran a piece on EV in India and concluded the EVs are not feasible there because of the same problem of securing sufficient supply of those critical elements for the batteries.
My personal experience with rechargeable batteries is negative. I bought an electric lawn mower which last only approximately a dozen charges before the battery no-longer charged. To replace the battery would have been more than half the cost of a new mower, so I discarded the battery-powered mower and bought a new, electric-corded model. I was dismayed at the short life of the lawn mower battery, but, can see why people love electric “vehicles”. The freedom to mow without worrying about the cord was awesome. I thought I had it made before I knew the high-cost of battery replacement.
Wouldn’t it be much of the same with an electric car? There would be more to worry about with the automobile, since when one needs to go somewhere, you have to drive. The lawn can wait. Sometimes errands and appointments cannot wait. I worry on computer glitches which even happen in my gasoline-powered car on rare occasions.
Minor irritations such as the radio, but still a potential worry on computers in general. One never knows what isn’t going to work.