Not if there are going to be hundreds of millions of them, no.
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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There are studies after what kind of mileage an EV outperforms a regular car.
But the question is: Where do you get your electricity from? Is it regenerative energy?
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The #1 problem with EVs is not the energy and materials used to create the battery because that is eclipsed many times over by not using gas during the batteryβs life- the biggest problem is that the entire car becomes e-waste as soon as the battery is damaged or degraded in any way.
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They're marginally better but we don't need marginally better, we need to get our shit together right now.
Lithium mining is not good for the environment.
We rape Africa for those metals the in a similar way we've been raping the middle east for oil. I guarantee once the US starts mandating EVs and the majority start to transition over there will suddenly be some reason we need to have a vested military presence in Africa, with the possibility of wars centered around countries with these metals that we need.
It's better for air quality and would do a shitload towards giving us some spare time to process climate change, but they come with their own baggage of bullshit in terms of environmental damage.
They are already shipping sodium batteries. By using lithium early and studying it they're already finding cheaper and easier batteries to manufacture. Lithium is a stepping stone, that doesn't mean it's the final form.
Exhaust and noise are still a problem. It won't do much on a climate level, but even if we manage to reduce car usage having the remaining cars be electric is useful. Both noise pollution and particulate pollution have negative effects on human health.
Maybe it's just my bubble but most climate activists I see are primarily pushing for renewable electricity generation, and consumption reduction across the board in all aspects of life. They are usually also against cars generally but it's a secondary subject.
It will actually have a huge impact on noise imho. I live near a intersection between 2 freeways, and lots of REALLY loud cars out there due to stupidly sized engines, or modified mufflers.. The majority of the noise isn't the movement of the car imho.
Also, it does have an impact on the climate too (it's been researched multiple times, and even with current tech, the overall emissions are substantially lower). Obviously Public Transport and Bicycles and such is better, but this is still a huge step in the right direction.
In fact, if technologies like Lithium-Air are developed, it will have an even bigger impact (because you can effectively reduce the battery weight 15x with the same range). Because you can also reduce the size of the car too, and the weight, you increase the efficiency further too. Sodium ion batteries being released this year already have an impact.
Short term EVs aren't making a lot of difference due to the higher energy costs of manufacturing them. Long term cars are just a terrible transportation method, especially within cities, and we really need alternatives so that we can get rid of most of them.
On the other hand as renewable energy sources take over the grid the energy costs of manufacturing EVs will be less relevant to climate change, and it's just going to be faster to switch power plants and new car manufacturing over than it will be to rebuild the entire transportation infrastructure on all of Earth, especially North America. That time difference will have a large effect on how bad things will get by the end of this century. EVs are dumb, but also a necessary stopgap.