How sustainable are electric vehicles? | The Stream

Electric vehicles have been hailed as an essential technology on our path to a fossil fuel-free and sustainable future. The US, UK and Europe have all enacted measures in recent years to ban new non-electric cars from 2035 onwards.

Companies themselves are also making moves to meet the increased demand for electric vehicles. General Motors has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040, while an array of EV startups have also entered the market. But as electric vehicles continue to gain momentum, critics are raising concerns about the extent of their sustainability and the ethics behind the manufacturing process.

Batteries are the lynchpin technology of EVs and they’re composed of critical minerals including lithium, cobalt, copper, graphite and nickel. The extraction of which is often marred by environmental contamination and worker exploitation in the global south. More than 70 percent of the world’s supply of cobalt is produced in the Democratic Republic of Congo where worker exploitation runs rampant in the artisanal mining industry. Mining itself, while an essential component of many economies, comes with high environmental costs such as the degradation of forests and contamination and overuse of already scarce water.

In response to these concerns, environmental and human rights advocates are calling for more responsible practices in the industry. A commitment to finding new and better ways to recycle batteries is also emphasized by experts who see recycling as a way to reduce reliance on mining and opaque supply chains while improving sustainability. Better battery resilience and recycling is also seen as an essential step towards more sustainable EVs.

In this episode of The Stream, we discuss the sustainability of electric vehicles.

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[mariahewitt]

No mention of the batteries selfcombusting and burning down homes?

[prudencebanda]

Don't just focus on getting Resources from Africa and other part of the world, but rather thinks of ways of improving lives as well as creating peace and harmony, for example people in Congo who deserve to benefit from their resources, instead they're daily suffering with the ongoing war that is happening within their country.

[rp]

Sounds more like EV's vs bicycles than EVs vs. gassers

[danielcasado]

Keep using your old vehicles, repair them and keep them alive. Running them cost more money but the overall climate impact is minimal in comparison to building electric cars and electric supply power stations, etc

[MrJdsenior]

People keep talking about these cars as zero emissions. That is nonsense. If you produce the electricity for them with so called "zero emissions" methods you get great gain. If you produce it with oil fired plants, not nearly as much, and if you produce it in a coal fired plant I wouldn't be surprised if it pollutes more. There is no zero emission ANYTHING that you produce. There are costs throughout the entire chain that aren't remotely zero, but a lot of them are common between IC powered and electric powered vehicles, and you need to figure that in, as well. Fixing the cars to electric is great, but it doesn't resolve the REAL fundamental issue, which is energy production with lowest possible emissions, across the ENTIRE chain, meaning mining, smelting, assembly, transportation, etc.

[donbarile]

and bonus: each electric vehicle will ship with at least 2 dead pre-teens from the cobalt mines that killed them, so you could feel satisfied you were being sUsTaINabLe.
Good for you... good for you.

[myultimatemixedtape]

Doesn't electricity use COAL???? Unless they are all solar powered how is this any better for the environment than

[naveedafridi]

The great problem in Electric car is refilling the battery charge, it take more time (3 or 4 hours per charge)and the other is safety of battery, in last 2, 3 year we notice that the electric cars and buses are get fire .

[prakritighodki]

Electric vehicles reduce dependency on fossil fuels, eliminate exhaust emissions, ensure energy and they are very economical.

[LouieLou]

I’m almost 50 years old and I have never paid more than $2000 for a vehicle. My current vehicle is a 2006 GMC Envoy. I paid $750 for it 3 years ago. 4 wheel drive, heat, and air work great. We’re quickly approaching a debt crisis in the west. A large proportion of people think they have to borrow money for a vehicle. In 2022 the average vehicle payment was 20% of the owners income. That’s not including the full coverage insurance that goes along with a car payment. This is gonna come back to haunt us in the future.

[darrenmccarthy]

Sorry but this was not a balanced conversation. There are so many issues relating to the EV industry that require further analysis. These participants are very obviously pro-EV. They quickly dismiss the human & environmental exploitation of mineral extraction by the developed world for EV production at the expense of the developing world with it will be different this time. History tells us that this always been the way (eg: oil extraction in Nigeria) so why would it be different for the EV industry. I also found it an unreasonable argument concerning the cost of EV's & who can afford them. Having spent quite some time in South East Asia constructing sustainable water supplies, much of the developing world is just living to survive day to day. So the comment was EV's are expensive now but they will become cheaper as time goes on but not to the extent that the third world can afford them. That is not a realistic comment. Or does the developed world do as it has done previously with other technologies & dump aging EV's with their failing batteries on the developing world for them to then deal with the disposal of batteries? The less said about the Battery Passport the better. This is just a big corp way of greenwashing & should be dismissed as such. We cannot even do this with Fair Trade Cocoa where the traceability is corrupt. I also noted the many the 'yes but' comments in the interview which is a dead give-away of a bad point being made. I agree, yes the world has to de-carbonise, & quickly, no question but not at the expense of a the world itself. All alternatives must be looked at & to understand & eliminate 'unintended' consequences on the poor & the environment.

[samanthaw]

A push bike is 100 percent more sustainable….and not the E kind either.

[lugh]

Electric vehicles have nothing at all to do with any conceivable fossil fuel-free sustainable future -

• Cars continue getting bigger and heavier and we keep making more of them,
• Batteries have lower energy density and higher manufacture cost compared to fossil fuel,
• Electrification remains dependent on fossil fuel infrastructure.

It is no consolation at all that some nations enjoy slightly lower carbon emissions than others, this is only a measure of ongoing inequality and social conflict. The thing that matters is -global atmospheric CO2 concentration-, which is only helped by fewer cars, smaller and lighter cars, driven slower and less frequently over shorter distances by everyone.

[deadmanprodinc]

The "Battery Passport", the concept introduced in this video that is intended to follow the start to finish battery construction is a joke. Big corporation will hire video crews to only show the positive aspects of the labour force mining these minerals and will not show their substandard environmental practices. Don't be so naive.

[alphabarrie]

That's not a good solution. This is a solution. In fact worster than oil. Forget about the mining problem. How about you try this. Plant seven fruit trees at a reasonable distance apart. Before planting. Place two used car batteries under two of the plants. Then wait until the trees beares it first fruits and then place touch light batteries that is equivalent to two car batteries just below the surface under two other trees. This will leave you with four fruit trees with batteries underneath them and three without any batteries underneath them. Let us know what happened after two years later please.

[Poxenium]

I havent reached minute one and the guy is already lying. Cobalt is not needed for EVs, it's mainly used for refining gas. More than half of EVs use LFP batteries, which don't need cobalt, the rest need very little cobalt.

[williamkennedy]

Peddling a bike works better. Walking as well.

[RandallMoore-xk]

this is a conversation between rich countries in the north, but it ignores more than half the population of the worlds poorest people for whom these fancy toys are not an option but who want things like refigeration, air conditioning and really cheap gasoline powered cars. Its too late, guys. History does not stop happening while we are focused on ONE aspect of our impact on the environment. BTW, I am 65, hate driving, never owned a car and ride a bike everywhere, so I am NOT a defender of carbon profits etc, but I am sick of the false promises of the current "environmental" delusions.

[rhenderson]

The continual push for new, innovative electric vehicles is meritworthy. The almost complete lack of focus on "downstream" extractive industries related pollution in producing contemporary electric vehicles is absolutely irresponsible.

The world has learned, but continues to disregard, that downstream sectors of the transportation industry are major contributors to global warming. Most significantly, "downstream" producers/suppliers will not willingly contribute to cleaning up the mess created.

[RandallMoore-xk]

Anyone who thinks the 2nd biggest polluting country in the world - the US - is going to do anything but FREAK out when gasoline prices go up by a dollar a gallon but will bear the costs of an energy source that takes in the real cost in the long term - is truly deluded.