Electric Vehicles Pros and Cons

Everyone knows  that electric vehicles themselves are clean energy with zero emissions.  What about the cost and emissions of creating the battery, setting up the charging system, and the already problematic electrical grid?  The tech providing power for electric vehicle's has come a long way in a short amount of time.  But is it far enough yet?  Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and Internal Combustion Engine vehicles (ICE) will both inhabit the earth for the foreseeable future either way.

There are a lot of companies planning on the switch to solely BEV.  Some of them have already stopped or slowed down research on the ICE as well.  According to Britain's University of Cambridge, producing a BEV produces 30 to 40 percent more emissions than an ICE car.  Of course, most of those emissions come from producing the battery itself.  Cobalt and Lithium require extensive mining and long supply chains while battery manufacturing as of now continues to have high carbon footprints.  Now, as the techniques and technology changes, that will continue to improve and as BEV's populate more roads the emissions will slowly come down.   What about producing the electricity you ask?   On average, the U.S. Energy Information Association says that  60 percent of electricity in the U.S. is created through the combustion of Fossil fuels.  Again, as solar and wind farms grow along with the use of natural gas and nuclear energy, the emissions to create electricity will go down as well.  

To summarize, BEV's will be the future. But it will be a slow process.  The Internal Energy Agency says that by 2030 there will probably be between 145 to 230 million BEV's on the road.  But, there will still be 1.8 to 2 billion ICE vehicles out there.  Change will not happen overnight.  The electrical grid still needs improvement and gas stations won't go by the wayside and/or be replaced by EV stations anytime soon.  The world will not be saved as soon as we thought.  For me, BEV's can be very fun to drive right alongside ICE vehicles.  Neither will be going away anytime soon.  For more information on the mining chain and process check out this article by Automotive World.

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