Everyone knows that electric vehicles are supposed to be better for the planet than gas cars. That’s the driving reason behind a global effort to transition toward batteries.
But what about the harms caused by mining for battery minerals? And coal-fired power plants for the electricity to charge the cars? And battery waste? Is it really true that EVs are better?
The answer is yes. But Americans are growing less convinced.
The net benefits of EVs have been frequently fact-checked, including by NPR. "No technology is perfect, but the electric vehicles are going to offer a significant benefit as compared to the internal combustion engine vehicles," Jessika Trancik, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told NPR this spring.
It’s important to ask these questions about EVs’ hidden costs, Trancik says. But they have been answered “exhaustively” — her word — and a widerange of organizations have confirmed that EVs still beat gas.
The vehicles weight a little more, but the move to solid state batteries will decrease weight by 30-50%. So that issue is already being addressed. Batteries will get better as we start to use them as competitive markets drive fixing such. We aren’t improving gas powered vehicles much anymore, they still kill people with their exhaust daily. Anyone going against the movement is for killing people and the environment. Dead stop.
Exactly my point. The pollution from road and tires kills more people than exhausts on a modern vehicle. And now that we are moving to heavier vehicles that need to compensate with higher power we will have even more pollution and carcinogens killing us. I’m a car mechanic and take the bus+subway to work but on the rare occasion I bring my car to get some work done I get lectured by customers, about how I should buy an ev for 5x the cost of my current car while they trot around in their 4 ton beasts every day. I’ve used my current set of tires for 6 years. Many of my EV customers need new tires every 6-12 months. People need to change their habits before buying en EV unless all they want to do is virtue signal.