The World is not yet Ready for Electric Cars

 

An ATED talk by Graham Conway, principal engineer at the South West Research Institute, emphasizes that electric vehicles are less green than ICE cars, and with good reason. While I don't agree with all of Conway's metrics, the point he makes is valid, that the work we need to do to make the electric vehicle truly green has not yet been done.

We are nowhere near the maximum potential of the electric car. Conway says that for the next two or three decades, the hybrid approach may be better — at least until we can fix the parts of the ecosystem that are making electric vehicles less green.

Meanwhile, we must continue to explore alternatives such as green hydrogen. A process where hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity. With that, we can get to a better place much faster than if we continue our big push to convert to electric vehicles.

This week let's talk about what's really involved in switching to electric cars. Then we'll close with our Product of the Week, a laptop from Vaio that shows just how much you can get for under $700 — at least for now.

I'm not Anti-Electric

Let me start by saying that I drive an EV and have since 2019 when I leased one of the first Jaguar I-Pace electric cars to come to America.

Last year I bought that car from a leasing company because I couldn't find anything better, and the lease purchase was much less than I could sell the car for. Seemed like a good deal.

I've been covering electric cars since the late 1990s when I was the top US battery analyst among many other topics. So, I love electric cars, but I also know their flaws and still have many.

Disadvantages of electric car

As Conway points out, electric cars can be driven indoors indefinitely without killing us and are definitely greener to drive. However, they have three major weaknesses.

The first is that battery technology is not where it would otherwise be, due to the near-total cessation of battery development in the early 1900s.

Lithium-ion has about one-third the energy density of dynamite, the typical arrangement being in small AA battery-like cells that are difficult to cool, and if the battery catches fire, it is difficult to extinguish. I know this firsthand because a lithium ion bicycle battery caught fire in my garage and even though I was trained as a fireman and was at home, I almost lost the house.

Lithium-ion burns hot enough to melt aluminum and will continue to burn as long as the cells have enough energy to generate the heat required for combustion. This is why we have reports of wrecked Teslas catching fire again at wrecking yards.

Further, as Conway noted, the construction of these batteries is a far from green process and the material is a pollutant, meaning the batteries must be recycled to prevent groundwater contamination.

The second weakness is that, largely for cryptocurrency miners, there is no electricity headroom in the world and the high productivity of electricity grids often comes from old, dirty, and nearly obsolete production facilities.

Electric cars draw a lot of electricity, and we don't yet have the headroom in our grid to supply it. Cars are typically charged at night when renewable sources such as wind and solar are either unreliable (wind) or non-existent (solar). So, even if you have a solar plant on your roof, if you are connected to the grid (not using batteries for power at night), and you switch your electricity at night, you may Drawing from a power source that is anything but green.

Third and finally, we don't have enough electrical capacity to handle a large influx of electric cars. Last I checked, if you have more than three cars charging at once within a block of houses, there's a good chance your local transformer will grenade - and when they go up they Grow really fast.

I looked into getting a level 3 charger for my electric vehicle, and it would cost me more than the cost of the car. Not only do I have to run bigger wires and more of them (from L-2- to L-3 phases), but I also need to pay to replace the local transformer and massively increase my home service level. Will be.

Now with solid-state batteries (which are coming), the expansion of green energy sources (especially nuclear or geothermal that can operate at night), and the expansion of microgrid technologies (the provision of small green generators that distribute are done), we can change Electric cars are a powerful force to combat climate change. But we are not there yet.

This is not a list of requirements that you can pick and choose. To make electric cars truly green you need all three elements: green energy storage, sufficient green energy generation, and a highly capable grid to distribute that energy reliably, affordably, and safely. It's all coming, just not all of it in this decade.

Other issues We are not talking about

More importantly, what do we do with the current gasoline drilling, refining and distribution system? The oil industry employs about 6 million people directly and generates 10 times more jobs indirectly.

Refineries, gas and oil pipelines, storage tanks and gas stations are all potentially hazardous material problems depending on how much oil and gas has been released over the years. Even if the answer is zero, the equipment will need to be safely cleaned and then disposed of.

Industries that depend on oil production, from plastics to cheap drugs (petroleum jelly) and some solvents, would largely collapse without oil production, and as a result an industry (all oil plates What happens to farms and oil rigs?) can lead to economic collapse. The environmental time bombs of the future will once fall under the firms that own them.

Plans for what to do with these related industries should be developed before the car and truck industry switches to electricity to avoid major labor and environmental problems.

Plug-in hybrids: the short-term Answer

As the TED talk also pointed out, you can get many of the benefits of an electric car with a plug-in hybrid.

My wife drives a Volvo XC60 rechargeable plug-in hybrid. After a year and a half with the car, we're on our third or fourth tank of gas (mostly tied to drives that exceed its electrical limits). It uses very small and safe battery.

The Volvo XC60 also typically only requires the included Level 1 battery charger that plugs into a regular household electrical plug, as Level 2 chargers require a two-phase hookup and a plug such as Uses an electric clothes dryer. His car will work with my level 2 charger, and it charges fast but not enough to make a level 2 charger useful, in my opinion.

Oh, and I should mention that while his car has an electric range of 20 miles, the latest version of his car doubles that to 40 miles, which makes the battery size much smaller than it should be. And keeping it on something green is more ideal. - On an electric car.

Finish

While I'm a fan of an electric car because they're a lot of fun to drive and surprisingly pleasant to drive through gas stations, the electric car ecosystem isn't where it needs to reap the full benefits of going electric. Required.

We need better, safer, more reliable, and greener battery technology. More green energy is needed to charge cars, and we need a much stronger and more powerful grid to handle the extra load (cryptocurrency mining, which has long taken off, requires a more powerful grid than Helped to advance). We also need a plan to step out without more pain than oil. Otherwise, the transition will be uglier than expected.

If we move to electric cars before all of these elements are in place, not only will this result in a reduction in the positive impact on climate change that electric would otherwise provide, but it will also contribute to other environmental and social problems. will create a large collection that we are not prepared to deal with. with

Sometimes it's better not to rush into a new technology and instead be more measured in our approach. This is why, for now, a hybrid car may be a more sustainable choice than electric vehicles until we can address other aspects of the EV conversion process.