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I was thinking about getting an EV and getting rid of my older car. Have been told that yeah they’re great and environmentally friendly. Others have said that the batteries are bad for the environment because power plants have to still provide the energy. Any EV others out there have thoughts? Thanks
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Not sure how accurate but I heard lithium mining is absolutely devastating for the planet.
I’ve heard that too. Hopefully new technologies along for batteries. Good point
But so is drilling for oil and gas, and that oil we just burn up which you can only do once and it's gone. The lithium used in batteries can be recycled.
We visited a mine's visitor center and they described how they are processing the previously mined waste to separate out the lithium. Lithium mining is rough, but it doesn't have to destroy whole new areas, at least not yet.
Lithium mining accounts for an extremely small contribution to an EV's overall environmental impact. Its impact is objectively and relatively quite small, but it gets a disproportionate level of attention simply because it's convenient to the beliefs of some people.
Better than combustion cars, but cars as a whole are unsustainable.
You should read Ian McEwan's *What We Can Know*. The first half of the book takes place one hundred years in the future, and is about an academic whose field is English literature of the 1990s to 2030s. This period is called "The Derangement" in the novel because "humanity had all the data about ecological collapse, resource wars, and mass displacement, yet chose inaction and denial. By the 21st and 22nd centuries, this accumulated failure led to "The Inundation" (hemispheric flooding), nuclear exchanges, and pandemics that halved the global population. The novel's narrator, a literature scholar named Thomas Metcalfe living in 2119, looks back from an inundated, archipelago-like England at the "bottomless ignorance" and tragic complacency of our current generational zeitgeist."
“Others” are idiots. The battery gets built once, then it sits in your vehicle for as long as you own it, and then it’s recycled. EV’s are powered off the grid, which is increasingly renewable (solar & wind). Ask your EV naysayer friend why they’re advocating having more fossil fuel emissions. Have they enjoyed the weather this summer? Those heat waves are caused by CO2 in the air, which comes from vehicles & power plants.
Want to hear something funny? Most of the people that say they’re bad drive huge old pickups. I’m not anti truck it anything. Just saying
Can you clarify to help me understand your point? The power plants that you mention put CO2 in the air, are they not the same ones that supply the energy to the EVs?
I don't understand how you're charging an EV without a power plant, unless you shut down the area for dunkelflauten. Note that only 5% of EV batteries are recycled, as the cost (both monetary and environmental) is so high. You'll see "95% recyclable" or even 99%, but that's theoretically, not practically. When your battery wears out, you need to mine a new one.
Ev creates pollution during manufacturing but produces little to no pollution while driving. Over time, it usually a smaller environmental impact than fuel vehicle.
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Yeah people act like gas cars pop out the ground with zero impact.
I own an EV and honestly love it. No car is completely impact free, but overall EVs tend to have lower emissions over their lifetime. For me, the lower maintenance and not paying for gas have been the biggest wins.
Awesome. Thanks got the input. We’re pretty close to going for it
May I ask for recommendations? My neighbor has a Hyundai Ioniq 6 and loves it
They are the (environmentally) best cars, but cars are still bad and make all transportation worse. Buses, trams, cycling, walking, etc. are all better with fewer cars on the road (and driving is better too)
From what I've read for typical driving patterns, an EV tends to break even within a year or two. So if you plan to buy an EV but then destroy it after a handful of months it's bad for the environment, for everyone else it's better. Though of course no car at all is better for the environment, but not really an option for everyone.
Investing. Didn’t know that. I’ll add that to the pile for consideration. Thanks
I don't think this is an inherent flaw with EVs though, The cars breaking fast has more to do with how stuff is manufactured lately, cheap plastics, too many unnecessary electronics, everything touchscreen, Take a decent car from the past, but swap the engine for electronic engines and only have the electronics required to run those engines safely, I bet you can have a tank of an EV that'll last for decades. Stuff just isn't built to last anymore, and it's not just cars.
I think the break even point was after 10yrs of driving it would break even. Then every year after being added to the positive percentage. Both use fossil fuels either through construction of materials, greases, plastics and throughout the life of the vehicle. I think we'll see more ev and hydrogen hybrids in the future.
I agree with you. I think hydrogen will eventually in the future take off
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Power shortage in the west right now and in order to make sure there is enough power to keep AC on the Dept if Energy authorized turning on backup generators ..the big ones that power cities... So right now all the EVs are getting ( at least partially) electricity produced by fossil fuels... So..that's bad for the planet .. right?
The longer you have the car the better. If you plan to only keep your care a few years and keep buying new cars then not great, but the longer you keep the car the more offset the original pollution costs are over time.
Plan on driving it as long as possible.
They're not "good" for the planet per se, but their greenhouse gas emissions are far less on the whole than gas vehicles. In metropolitan areas, the they're still far outclassed by public transit because good public transit infrastructure moves many more people to areas of high traffic with a fraction of the energy (and a fraction of the danger), but from a consumer perspective, if you need a car and are environmentally conscious, an EV would be a good investment. You'll need to account for charging station availability when planning long trips, along with a few other general considerations that you'll probably be made aware of in the process of researching a potential purchase.
Best answer so far. Thank you so much for the information. I think we’re going to go for it
They're better than gasoline cars Not as good as public transportation
Yes true. But public transportation isn’t great in all areas.
Public transportation is sometimes VERY inefficient at routing between real world end points, and may use diesel fuel. I don’t think you can defend a simple blanket statement that “public transportation is better.”
Evs are .uch better for the environment by the end of a vehicles life. Batteries can be recycled, how do you recycle all the fossil fuels burned by an ICE vehicle?
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No method of transportation is "good" for the planet in the sense that it provides an absolute environmental benefit as you use it. However, in a relative sense, EVs are better for the environment than their gasoline-powered counterparts, even after you account for the impacts of making the batteries and the energy coming from the power plants.
Historically, there has been an effort to portray them otherwise going as far back as the Prius. Those efforts have never been rooted in reality, as lifecycle analysis research has repeatedly demonstrated otherwise. Still, it doesn't stop some people from spreading those claims anyways because it's convenient to their beliefs.
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good if you buy one and keep it forever. good if you have solar panels on your home to charge it the longer you keep something the better it is for the planet