Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
Many focus on C02 while there are other pollutants that are harmful to health unlike CO2.
According to a French study carried out by the NGO Transport & Environment, in Europe, an electric vehicle emits 65% less C02 on its life cycle than the thermal one.
Tomorrow, the sustainability of electric vehicles will improve even more thanks to advances in battery technology and the fact that more batteries are reused for electricity storage or recycled.
Even in a country that uses dirty energy to generate electricity, the electric vehicle will always be cleaner than the combustion vehicle.
We often forget to talk about pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NOx), fine particles (PM2.5 or PM10), unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and benzene. The electric vehicle engine does not emit any pollutants while the combustion engine, in operation, emits pollutants constantly...
But as with any type of vehicle, fine particles are emitted by the abrasion of tires in motion. The quantities of fine particles produced by electric vehicles are slightly lower than those of internal combustion vehicles.
A solution exists to prevent tires from emitting fine particles into the air : Particle capture which allows them to be stored in a box located near the tires at ground level to prevent them from being released into the air.
Combustion vehicles, i.e. gasoline or diesel vehicles, can have harmful health consequences due to their emissions of air pollutants.
They can cause health problems such as asthma, allergies, heart and lung diseases, and even cancer.
In addition, emissions from internal combustion vehicles contribute to climate change by increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
According to the ICCT (International Council on Clean Transportation), every year, there is around half a million premature deaths worldwide due to combustion engines.
The study estimated that exhaust emissions from internal combustion vehicles caused around 361,000 premature deaths worldwide in 2010 and around 385,000 in 2015.
On-road diesel vehicles were responsible for almost half of the health effects of air pollution from vehicles worldwide in 2015, and for two-thirds of the effects in India, France, France, Germany, and Italy.
The global cost of these health effects due to transport in 2010 and 2015 was approximately $1 trillion US dollars.
It is therefore important toTo stop using these polluting vehicles.
Every year, in Europe, ½ million people die prematurely from diseases caused by poor air quality, which is therefore partly caused by internal combustion vehicles.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 7 million people die every year in the world due to air pollution.
Note that emissions from road transport are often more harmful than emissions from other sources because they occur at ground level and are most often found in cities, close to the population.
Rare metals, cobalt and lithium are subject to a lot of criticism.
However there is no No rare metals in electric vehicle batteries. The old batteries contained them but the technology has evolved.
Some electric motors can contain them (permanent magnet motors) but you can do without them. It should also be noted that 26% of the metals/rare earths used are used as catalysts in the oil industry and thermal vehicles...
These metals are not rare but are only present in small quantities in the rock, hence the name.
With respect to Cobalt is less and less present or not at all in batteries, in particular because of the cost and child labor in some mines (about 10% of mines).
Currently, the lithium is the most important metal in an electric vehicle. It represents only 2% of the mass of a battery.
It is today either extracted from the brine which is evaporated thanks to the sun (no chemical product is added, so no pollution; possible use of drinking water but no formal proof) or either from certain ores rich in lithium (spodumenes).
The majority of the lithium used in the world and in batteries comes from mines where the extraction technique does not require water to be pumped.
Lithium is mainly extracted in Australia, Chile and China but also in Portugal (8th country with the largest reserves of lithium). New deposits are discovered around the world and therefore lithium extraction projects are emerging more and more. According to forecasts and taking into account the rapid growth of the electric vehicle, its reserves are estimated at several decades, even a century or more. To distinguish between ”resources” What are the known quantities of ”reserves” which are commercially exploitable quantities. But Lithium can be replaced by another component: sodium battery (already in production), graphene battery, magnesium (currently under development).
As for recycling, today, the batteries are 95-98% recyclable! Metals do not lose their qualities and properties. They can be reused endlessly, put back into the circuit. The various battery materials are extracted, separated and recovered. The recycling plant then markets powders and ingots of nickel, cobalt, iron, manganese, copper, aluminum, lithium, etc.
There are enough metals to build large-scale electric vehicles but recycling is important.
There are 2 types of motors for electric vehicles:
Rare metals such as neodymium, terbium, and dysprosium are generally used in magnets for permanent magnet synchronous electric motors, which account for around 80% of electric cars in circulation. However, some automotive companies are planning to reduce their use of rare metals due to concerns about security of supply, price fluctuations, and environmental damage in the supply chain. In fact, Tesla announced in 2023 that it would no longer use rare metals in its electric motors. And In 2027, Renault will produce an electric motor without rare earths on a large scale in its factory in France.
Today, we find more and more vehicles with a autonomy between 300 and +600km (WLTP).
A trip on the highway is not a problem provided you look at the vehicle's highway consumption (kWh/100km).
More and more vehicles have a heat pump in order to avoid using the battery to heat themselves, etc.
Charging stations are becoming more and more numerous and offer high-power charging (up to 350 kW) for cars and up to 1000 kW for trucks) Of what recharge your vehicle in 20-30 minutes (10 to 80%). Charging time tends to decrease over the years thanks to new battery technologies. Electric cars can even already recharge (up to 600 kW) by 5-10 minutes (10 to 80%) in China where battery technology is very advanced.
Electric vehicles are less and less expensive thanks to greater demand and improved technology (batteries, motors, etc.).
Currently, you can find a new electric car starting at 15,000€.
A big advantage of the electric car is that the Charging is not expensive especially if you have solar panels. In addition, you have to very low maintenance.
The most affordable vehicle (Dacia Spring) is available for around €15,000 while having a decent range for its size (230km in mixed mode and 305km in urban mode).
Unfortunately, hydrogen has a number of disadvantages.
Hydrogen is only useful for producing green steel and fertilizer. The hydrogen-powered airplane is still being studied because it takes up a lot of space in tanks.
Synthetic fuels can be made from biomass and/or hydrogen and CO2 (unfortunately, carbon capture only allows a very small quantity of CO2 to be captured).
But gas and biofuel vehicles still pollute too much (CO2, fine particles, nitrogen oxides, unburned hydrocarbons,...). In fact, these fuels are burned in the engines and therefore release pollutants (nitrogen oxides, carcinogenic particles,...). They also have a dependence on fossil fuels, one impact on food sources, of high costs for the necessary infrastructure and high fuel costs (estimate of €3/L, or €200 full for e-fuels in 2030), and a increased complexity in fuel production and distribution.
The production of these synthetic fuels is complex and very energy-intensive. Running a car on synthetic fuel is nearly five times less efficient than powering an electric vehicle directly.
Since at least 2017, synthetic fuels are being pushed by the oil lobby to try to slow down the switch to clean electric motors.
The electric vehicle seems obvious to replace the polluting thermal vehicle towards a much more ecological and logical solution.
From an environmental, efficiency and feasibility point of view, the electric vehicle is the most advisable. It is the only alternative that can solve health and environmental problems in a significant way.
Of course, to have the cleanest possible vehicle, we must not forget also that the source of energy used to recharge your electric vehicle must be as least polluting as possible, such as solar, wind and nuclear power.
Battery technology is constantly evolving and significant progress has been made in recent years to improve battery performance, reduce their cost, extend their lifespan, etc. Although there may still be some disadvantages currently, they are therefore only temporary as the technology is developing.
