Are Electric Cars the Way Forward?

“We will not stop until every car on the road is electric.” - Elon Musk

Fair play Elon. A world-changing awe-inspiring, quote. Isn't it? Electric cars are perfect! They don't use that grimy, tycoon-enriching petrol. Lots of countries (Ireland included) offer tax benefits to electric car owners (McGuinness, 2019). They're even quieter than their fuel guzzling counterparts. So what are the drawbacks? They can't be perfect, can they?

While the benefits of electric cars are well documented, much less is known about the disadvantages, and there are some damning ones. Let's have a look at them and how they can be improved:

1. Carbon Neutrality

Anyone who thinks electric cars are carbon neutral is living in a fantasy land. These cars can only be as neutral as the source of their energy. If you plug your car into a socket that gets it's energy from coal or natural gas, it can't very well be carbon neutral, can it? As of 2016, just 8% of Ireland's energy comes from renewable sources (www.seai.ie, 2017). To be as neutral as possible, these vehicles need to charge up from a renewable energy source. This can be solved by constructing solar or wind-powered charging stations, but these come at their own cost. Who cares about saving the planet when we can save money instead!? Basically, the carbon neutrality (or lack thereof) of electric cars is a larger, societal problem. Governments, as opposed to manufacturers, will have to put changes in place in order to solve this problem.

2. Batteries

We've all heard about the disastrous effects of not recycling batteries. They leak toxic waste into the ground! It's going to cause radioactive insects! On a more serious note, the chemicals that are released from unused batteries are quite toxic for the environment, especially lithium-ion batteries (used in electric cars). These cars have big batteries, ergo electric cars very bad, yes? Not quite. Some of the metals in batteries can be re-obtained through smelting, but lithium, a main component, cannot (Innovation and Tech Today, 2020). However fear not as this is already being dealt with. Aceleron is a start-up company that recycles these car batteries and sends them to disadvantaged countries to improve their availability of electricity (Chowdhury, 2019). You see, when car batteries are no longer sufficient for powering a 2 tonne, $50k car, they are still at about 70% capacity and thus, are more than capable of powering other devices. Aceleron are killing two huge birds with one gigantic stone.

3. Charging

One persons anecdotal evidence isn't exactly statistically significant, but I don't think I've ever seen a car charging station. Granted, I don't look out for them, but when compared to petrol stations which seem to appear every 100m, it's still quite worrying. Also, if you want a charging station at home it is going to run you about €1000, and again unless its powered by renewable energy, you are still killing polar bears and ice caps. At the moment most electric cars can travel from around 170km-350km on one charge (of course Tesla ranges from 400km - 600km, nice flex Elon) (May, 2017). Obviously this is a large discrepancy, but it means you wont be undertaking a Route 66 road-trip in a car like the BMW i3 (190km). A positive to glean here is that this is probably the most easily-solved problem. Presumably when we all give in to our artificially intelligent overloads and buy electric, self-driving cars, there will be plenty of charging stations to choose from, and this may happen sooner than we think.

Of course electric cars are still much better for our now fragile environment than regular cars. It's no wonder many countries are aiming to stop producing fossil-fueled cars in the coming years. Norway have even pledged to do so by 2025! (Coren, 2018). Legislation like this will definitely have long-lasting positive effects on our environment. However it's important to note that despite the numerous and relatively obvious advantages, there are still some problems to address - some of these more easily solvable than others. It's all supply and demand these days.

References:

McGuinness, G. (2019).Making Cents: Many benefits as we drive forward with electric cars. [online] www.irishexaminer.com. Available at: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/features/making-cents-many-benefits-as-we-drive-forward-with-electric-cars-954030.html [Accessed 23 Mar. 2020].

Chowdhury, H. (2019). Government-backed start-up Aceleron to roll out 4,000 batteries to Kenya.The Telegraph. [online] 25 Nov. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/11/25/government-backed-start-up-aceleron-roll-4000-batteries-kenya/ [Accessed 23 Mar. 2020].

annualreport.weeeireland.ie. (n.d.).2017 Results | WEEE Ireland Annual Report 2017. [online] Available at: https://annualreport.weeeireland.ie/2017-results [Accessed 23 Mar. 2020].

www.seai.ie. (2017).Energy in Ireland 1990-2016. [online] Available at: https://www.seai.ie/publications/Energy-in-Ireland-1990-2016-Full-report.pdf [Accessed 23 Mar. 2020].

Innovation & Tech Today (2020).How Sustainable Are Electric Vehicles Really?[online] Grit Daily News. Available at: https://gritdaily.com/how-sustainable-are-electric-vehicles-really/ [Accessed 23 Mar. 2020].

May, M. (2017).How far can you get in an electric car? (The Irish landmarks version). [online] TheJournal.ie. Available at: https://www.thejournal.ie/electric-vehicles-with-longest-range-3224466-Feb2017/ [Accessed 23 Mar. 2020].

Coren, M.J. (2018).Nine countries say they’ll ban internal combustion engines. [online] Quartz. Available at: https://qz.com/1341155/nine-countries-say-they-will-ban-internal-combustion-engines-none-have-a-law-to-do-so/ [Accessed 23 Mar. 2020].