Replies

“Is the information in the article accurate?”

‘Accurate’ in the form of a 6th grader looking up some random stuff and not making sense of it.

The ‘accuracy’ ranges from stating the bloomin’ obvious, to stating vaguely correct but missing lots of relevant factors, to the downright stupid.

“Batteries, they do not make electricity ... to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid.”

Duh. The vehicle itself does not produce emissions; the _source_ of the energy may OR MAY NOT (solar, wind, hydro, nuke) produce emissions.
Contrast this with every single ICE vehicle which, by definition, directly emits stuff you don’t want to breathe in.

“Einstein’s formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five-thousand-pound gasoline-driven automobile a mile as it does an electric one.”

Uh, no. Like way stupid wrong.

“There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single-use. The most common single-use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals.”

Well, pretty obvious that “single-use” doesn’t apply here, right? Duh?

Most common types - are not relevant to EVs. Those are not the standard packaging used for EVs.

Gee, gasoline/etc aren’t exactly pleasant to ingest.

And oh by the way: Tesla is removing cobalt - the most controversial metal in rechargeable batteries - from battery production.

“Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium.”

Well, between “internal materials” and packaging types, those are pretty significantly different.

“The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year”

‘Two’? You just listed three.

“most are not recycled; they end up in landfills.”

Those tossed in the trash aren’t the ones used in EVs. Can you PLEASE FREAKING STAY ON TOPIC PLEASE?!?

“If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash”

Right, because 2000 pound sealed packs, mounted deep in a vehicle’s frame, are “small”.

“All batteries are self-discharging.”

And then goes on to pontificate on something completely irrelevant.

“In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles.”

Those don’t have anything to do with EVs.

“Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle single-use ones properly.”

That has what to do with the topic? Nothing.

“But that is not half of it. For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and also windmills and solar panels. These three technologies share what we call environmentally destructive production costs.”

My 6th grader writes like that.

OH LOOK, FINALLY TALKING ABOUT ELECTRIC CARS.

“A typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds, about the size of a travel trunk. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells.”

Ok. Gasoline cars have a 10-50 gallon tank which is built to store a large quantity of flammable toxic gasoline. Your point?

“It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just - one - battery.”

If you’d been PAYING ATTENTION, you’d know that the “lithium brine” process is being eliminated, cobalt is being eliminated, nickel is recyclable, copper is a massively used commodity (if you’re gonna complain about its use in EVs, there’s a whole lot more to complain about first).

“Sixty-eight percent of the world’s cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo.”

Cobalt is being eliminated from EV production.
Cobalt is being eliminated from EV production.
Cobalt is being eliminated from EV production.
Cobalt is being eliminated from EV production.
Cobalt is being eliminated from EV production.

“...They claim this is the ultimate in being ‘green,’ but it is not. ...”

Yes. Well known “open secret” is EVs aren’t perfectly green like some snowflakes think they are. DUH. If we go thru the same kind of “OMG scary chemicals” list with fossil fuels, you’re not gonna look so superior.

““Going Green” may sound like the Utopian ideal but when you look at the hidden and embedded costs realistically with an open mind, you can see that Going Green is more destructive to the Earth’s environment than meets the eye, for sure.”

OMG that was a painful stupid read. Seriously, looks like a 6th grader wrote it. It’s an extremely sloppy hit piece, obviously written by someone trying to bash something they don’t understand but your progressive mommy told you was told was wrong.

You want to write a piece critical of EVs? Sure, I’ll help you write it - and teach you a whole lot more about the subject in the process. A fair contrast would conclude that EVs are at best marginally cleaner than ICE vehicles, but with ICE being near the end of its lifespan, and EVs just getting started with major technical developments coming fast & frequent, the two can exist together well with a long-term transition to the latter as - just like with gasoline - assorted technical & logistic problems get solved.

No I don’t think “EVs will save the world”. I _do_ think they’re an impressive technical development, and from personal experience find them a desirable category of vehicles.