Opinion | Relax, Electric Vehicles Really Are the Best Choice for the Climate

Introduction

It has been a bumpy few weeks for carmakers who sell electric vehicles, which are moving more slowly off the lot than they were earlier this year. What’s going on? It seems that American drivers may be more hesitant about E.V.s than automakers expected.

Concerns about Electric Vehicles

I am familiar with trepidation about electric vehicles; I hear it when I give talks around the country about how each of us can take small steps to slow and stop climate change, when I chat with my neighbors and when I go on a road trip in my own E.V. Some people worry about running out of battery power far from a charging station; others are dissuaded by the upfront costs. The electric Volkswagen ID. 4, for example, sells for about $40,000, while the similarly sized, gas-powered Volkswagen Tiguan sells for about $30,000 — though the E.V. has a lower total cost over the life of the car.

Addressing Misunderstandings

Those concerns will likely diminish in 2024 as money from the Inflation Reduction Act flows into building more charging stations and making discounts for electric vehicles available right at the dealership. But I think something else may explain why so many Americans, including those who consider themselves climate conscious, have been hesitant to buy an electric vehicle. It’s a fear that such vehicles aren’t really all that much better for the environment than hybrid vehicles that have both gas and electric motors, and might even be worse, because of everything required to manufacture batteries and mine the materials that go into them. This worry is keeping some would-be buyers on the sidelines of the E.V. revolution.

If you look under the hood, so to speak, these concerns share two fundamental misunderstandings: They assume that the electric vehicle industry is locked in to today’s technology, and they discount the huge environmental drawbacks of gas-powered alternatives. Electric vehicles are like digital cameras in their early iterations. They are already better than the alternative for almost everyone, and improving at a breathtakingly fast clip. And while there are environmental concerns with them, they are dwarfed by the benefit they provide regarding climate change — the biggest environmental threat to human well-being in the 21st century.

Emissions during Battery Construction

Let’s start with the concern about emissions during battery construction, a topic that comes up in almost every talk I give on this subject. Electric vehicle batteries require a lot of materials and electricity to manufacture, and that process does produce more greenhouse gas emissions than not making a battery.

But let’s do the math as I’ve done for my family’s two E.V.s. We got the first to replace our 10-year-old, gas-powered Subaru, and after only two years of driving, the E.V. has created fewer emissions over its lifetime than if we had kept the old car. It will take our second E.V. only four years to create fewer emissions over its lifetime than the 2005 hybrid Prius it replaced. That’s counting the production of the batteries and the emissions from charging the E.V.s, and the emissions payback time will only continue to drop as more emissions-free wind and solar power comes onto the grid and battery technology improves.

Future Battery Technology

My colleague Yue Qi, a battery researcher, recently told me, “Every prediction made 10 years ago about the change in price, efficiency and energy density of batteries was too pessimistic.” For instance, an assessment from the Argonne National Laboratory found that the lifetime emissions of E.V.s dropped 40 percent between 2015 and 2020. Even 2020 is ancient history when you look at another oft-cited concern — that we will run out of materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel to make batteries. Here again, it’s a mistake to think present constraints will continue into the future given that the price of lithium has fallen roughly 70 percent from its high in 2022.

Cobalt, another key component of batteries, has been in the public eye because of its scarcity and the horrific working conditions for miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those conditions need to be addressed, but it’s a mistake to view them in isolation. Oil extraction has its own horrific human and environmental costs, as does climate change. In my view, relying on gas cars over electric vehicles is the bigger contributor to environmental injustice.

Happily, an increasing number of E.V.s, including those of Tesla and the Chinese automaker BYD, no longer use cobalt in their batteries in most markets because the performance of cobalt-free alternatives is rapidly improving. Within a decade, many batteries may be built with sodium in place of lithium, a trend already accelerating in China, the world’s biggest market for electric vehicles. Again, our present concerns will most likely fade in the near future.

Plug-in Hybrids and Emissions

After batteries, the second most common question that comes up is about plug-in hybrids, which are cars that can run for about 25 to 50 miles on a smallish battery and then switch to a gas engine for longer trips. You might think that that’s a pretty good compromise — most car trips in the United States are, after all, under 25 miles, and if everyone had a plug-in hybrid, a vast majority of trips would be solely battery powered.

But what matters for emissions is not trips but miles, and long trips are where we really pile on the miles. That means about half of all miles driven in plug-in hybrids would still be driven using gas on long trips. Thus, buying a hybrid, rather than an electric vehicle, perpetuates our dependence on gas production and distribution, slowing — rather than hastening — the transition to a zero-emissions future. Simply put, we can’t solve the climate crisis if we keep our gas infrastructure; only fully electric vehicles (coupled with clean electricity) can eliminate emissions from our cars.

Additional Benefits of Electric Vehicles

Even without considering climate,

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
• SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
• SDG 13: Climate Action
• SDG 15: Life on Land

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• SDG 7.2: Increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
• SDG 9.4: Upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable.
• SDG 11.2: Provide access to safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all.
• SDG 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning.
• SDG 15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce degradation of natural habitats.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• Indicator for SDG 7.2: Share of renewable energy in the total energy consumption.
• Indicator for SDG 9.4: Proportion of industries using sustainable practices and technologies.
• Indicator for SDG 11.2: Proportion of population with access to public transport.
• Indicator for SDG 13.2: Number of countries with integrated climate change policies.
• Indicator for SDG 15.5: Rate of change in the extent of natural habitats.

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Behold! This splendid article springs forth from the wellspring of knowledge, shaped by a wondrous proprietary AI technology that delved into a vast ocean of data, illuminating the path towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Remember that all rights are reserved by SDG Investors LLC, empowering us to champion progress together.

Source: nytimes.com