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Electric Vehicles - The Truth and the Tripe

There is no better way to ruffle the feathers of the oil tycoon than a shift to the all-electric vehicle.

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Impractical? Expensive? Slow? Unreliable? Dirty? These are just some of the words we have seen thrown around since the EV joined the global market as a genuine contender of the combustion engine powered car.

While there may be truth to some of these accusations, much of what we hear about EV’s ranges from misunderstanding, to utter nonsense — aka tripe.

So, let’s look at some of the most common words people use to associate with EV’s and figure out which ones bare truth, and which ones hint of tripe, and let’s back up our conclusions with reliable sources.

Range
‘They are impractical because they have very little range!‘, Truth or Tripe?

A lack of range when compared with petrol and diesel counterparts has likely been the greatest barrier standing between the EV and the mass market, but there are two things you should know about EV range:
1. Recently published studies of American driving habits have revealed that the average American drives 29.2 miles per day, well within the range of most EV’s, making the electric car ideally suited to the average daily commute.
2. The newly released Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt are all setting new standards in EV range. We are now seeing numbers like “250+ kilometers“. A number that high is likely to outdo your own bladder range, which makes you wonder if range anxiety is still really a thing?

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Charging
'They are impractical because they take too long to charge!’, Truth or Tripe?

The average EV user will tend to charge their vehicle overnight, this way they can take advantage of the cheaper evening electricity tariffs, ready for their daily commute the following morning. No doubt this is economical.

What If an EV user is going on a longer journey, or finds themselves needing to charge the car in a hurry? This is where public charging stations come in, depending on the type of system, these “fast-chargers” can charge an EV to 80% capacity in twenty to thirty minutes. This technology is also continuing to improve.



Infrastructure
There is nowhere to charge an EV!‘, Truth or Tripe?

So you can charge an EV pretty quickly if you are in a hurry, but there are many who claim that public charging infrastructure is simply “not there”. While it is true that charging infrastructure is still developing, most developed countries have plenty of public charging stations, it’s just a matter of planning your journey beforehand. Don’t take my word for this, check out PlugShare.

Batteries

‘The battery is expensive, and will die after a few years’, Truth or Tripe?

It is true that these large Lithium Ion batteries do not come cheap, however it should be noted that the price of batteries is dropping every year as demand increases, Telsa have even gone as far as claiming that the Gigafactory alone will reduce battery prices by around 30%.

The lifespan of an EV battery is also a lot longer than many people believe, many manufacturers provide a battery warranty of ten years, but an EV owner can expect the battery to survive long past this warranty.

Research has shown that even with the replacement of a battery, an EV is still more economical than a petrol or diesel car. Then there is the topic of new battery technologies currently in the pipeline, but let’s save that for a future topic.

Overloaded
‘The national grid cannot handle a nation of EV’s‘, Truth or Tripe?

This is another classic, inaccurate criticism. If everyone owned an EV, and they all arrived home from work at 6pm during electricity peak, and they all plugged in their EV and sucked energy from the national grid at the same time, this could present a problem, but this is not how EV’s work — they are smarter than that.

The majority of EV users will charge their vehicle overnight when tariffs are cheap, and national demand for electricity is low.

In fact, studies have revealed that while EV’s may increase overall demand for electricity, the largest problem for the National Grid has been erratic demand — trying to balance peak and off-peak consumption — and this has been a problem for many years. EV’s may actually help to solve this problem in the form of what is called “vehicle-to-grid technology“.

This technology would allow EV’s to feed your house during peak electricity when the grid is under strain, and consume from the grid during off-peak electricity when the grid is producing excess power. The result is a balanced grid, and a potential solution to the renewable energy “duck curve“.

Landfill
‘All those batteries eventually end up in landfill‘, Truth or Tripe?

Tripe. Lithium Ion batteries can be recycled if proper practices are enforced.

Dirty
‘Driving an EV causes just as much emissions as a petrol car, because that energy is still coming from power plants‘, Truth or Tripe?

It is true that if you are charging your car from a national grid powered by coal for example, you may still be indirectly generating high emissions, however, there are three things you need to consider:
1. EV’s convert over 90% of energy from their batteries into moving the car, compared with 30% from a modern petrol or diesel car, so even if charged entirely by fossil fuels, EV’s are still significantly more efficient
2. Not all countries have dirty grids, New Zealand for example uses 70 - 80% clean, renewable energy from varying sources such as hydro, wind and geothermal.
3. In order to reduce global emissions, we need to move towards cleaner energy alongside electric transportation. Just because that move to cleaner energy might be moving slower, does not mean we should just ditch the idea of EV’s — they are two goals to achieving a carbon neutral future.

Cobalt
‘There are children dying in Africa to mine cobalt for EV’s‘, Truth or Tripe?

Cobalt is a chemical element used in the production of Lithium Ion batteries, so you will find it in the battery of an EV, your smartphone, and many other electronic devices.

It is disheartening to say that many suppliers of Cobalt retrieve this resource from impoverished countries with very poor working conditions — countries where child labour is common — so there is an unfortunate truth to this criticism. However, the oil industry doesn’t exactly have the cleanest record when it comes to the morals of oil extraction either.

No matter how you travel or which product you purchase in the west, there’s a good chance someone, somewhere in the world is being exploited as a result, whether it be Cobalt, petroleum, palm oil, or a t-shirt manufactured in a sweat shop.

As consumers, the best thing we can do from an ethical perspective is to shop consciously — find out how a product is made before you purchase it.

Silly
‘The EV designs are too radical!‘, Truth or Tripe?

Those with a more conservative taste for design have claimed that EV’s always have a “silly“ design — probably referring to the BMW i3, which is perhaps a little radical for some — but the E-Golf on the other hand? One would surely forgive you for thinking this was a regular little petrol Golf.

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While electric vehicles are not perfect and there are still some hurdles to cross, they are already a practical alternative to the petrol car for the vast majority of us, and now is a better time than ever to quit the pump and join the revolution.


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