Emerald-Colored Glasses: Just How Green Are EVs?

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky

As the resident sourpuss, I make it my business to complain about every industrial hypocrisy that crosses my path and the automotive sector has kept me so busy that there’s hardly any time left to address my own failings. Though I do have to confess that I sometimes feel guilty about how frequently I’m compelled to gripe about electric vehicles. Provided that you’re willing to work with their charging limitations and less-than-impressive ranges, EVs have a lot to offer even in their current state. But the way they’ve been marketed has been so consistently disingenuous that I often end my days on the cusp of a frustration-induced aneurysm.

The winds appear to be changing, however.

After years of watching the industry bang its head against the wall, the media seems prepared to shift its position. Accelerated adoption of pure electrics doesn’t seem to be happening and too many EV startups have ended up being little more than an opportunity for investors to throw away money. Increasingly fewer people ask me about battery-powered cars in a way that suggests true enthusiasm. Excitement has given way to dubiousness as more people have begun to ponder if electrics are really all they’re cracked up to be.

The Wall Street Journal has released a couple of articles on the matter this year, with the most recent one dropping last week. Rather than running with the narrative that electrics are the obvious choice for a cleaner environment, the outlet has begun asking harder questions and even spilling some beans tech firms would prefer to remain canned. Among them was a query about how automakers are going to tamp down the price of EVs to be competitive when the materials going into them are in such high demand. Furthermore, what are the odds battery production will be done in an environmentally friendly way when the industry knows it has to make it as cost-effective as possible?

We’ve been wondering the same thing for years — and that’s just for starters. How does a national energy grid contend with an EV-dominant landscape? Can that energy be sourced reliably and in a manner that’s cleaner than what we have today? How do we ensure sufficient raw materials for battery production? Is building up an entirely new charging infrastructure for the planet more efficient than continuing with what we have? What if consumers don’t like electrics as much as internal combustion cars? What if EVs don’t reach parity with ICEs as soon as we think? What about the ethical complications of mining in third-world countries? What about the dangers of shifting over to a driving model that gives China (the world’s leading battery producer) a clear industrial advantage?

This is a corner the industry and government have painted themselves into by way of perpetually ignoring any shortcomings associated with the technology and encouraging surface-level environmentalism, rather than genuinely critical thinking into the issue. It’s reminiscent of how the European Union handled air pollution by assuming that prioritizing diesel-fueled vehicles would automatically win the day, only to have reality catch up a couple of decades later.

From WSJ:

The all-electric technology popularized by Tesla involves a kind of front-loading of environmental risk. EVs emit less carbon than a conventional car, even when recharged with electricity made by burning coal, but their powerful batteries require a lot of resources to make.

This inconvenient truth is one reason car makers are getting more involved in the EV supply chain. Investments such as the new battery factories announced by General Motors this week are mainly about securing greater control over the supply, technology and costs of the most important EV component. But a fourth factor fast rising up the priority list is control over their environmental footprint.

Buying battery cells made with renewable electricity is one focus. Faced with very strong demand, European battery startup Northvolt, which is backed by Volkswagen and BMW among others, last week raised $2.75 billion to further expand its low-carbon production facility in northern Sweden, where hydroelectric power is plentiful.

Another hot topic is the mining of battery metals, notably lithium. The industry used to worry more about cobalt, which is sourced mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo amid charges of child labor, but in recent years the metal’s role in battery chemistry has shrunk. Lithium can’t so easily be minimized in lithium batteries. The stocks of U.S. producers Albemarle and Livent are trading close to record highs.

Automakers using EVs as a tactic to wrangle more control over their product is further emphasized by the number of companies that are now reimagining the concept of vehicle ownership as their lobbying groups take on the right-t0-repair movement (which believes companies don’t have the right to dictate what customers can do to their products after they’ve been purchased). But that’s another issue we probably should dive into separately. The point is that the automotive sector has reached a point where it’s throwing away the established way of doing business so it can exert more control over products.

And we could certainly have a frank and productive discussion on the matter if anyone in the business was willing to state that bluntly. But the issue of EVs has become so bogged down in the notion that they’ll be miraculously better for the environment, provided you don’t think about it too hard, that thoughtful considerations never really get off the ground.

This isn’t a problem exclusive to tech companies, either. There’s plenty to dislike about the oil industry and stupid decisions abound — my current favorite is that it’s somehow better to ship oil around the world using super-polluting tanker ships or loaded onto smoke-spewing trucks, than simply sourcing (and refining) as much as possible domestically and moving it around via pipelines. The argument is never that it’s too risky to place so much of our energy infrastructure in one vulnerable space, or that we have complicated political interest that might discourage homestyle refineries. We’re just issued the catchall excuse that it’s probably bad for the environment, with only the most thoughtful examples including some mention of spoiling protected lands.

That’s if we’re lucky. But why have EVs been getting less love in 2021 when we could have chugged along spewing the same narratives?

Well, we’re starting to see some of their shortcomings. More importantly, so has the industry that was promising they’d be all the rage in a couple more years. This coincides with everyone realizing that global supply chains aren’t necessarily something we can perpetually count upon thanks to the semiconductor shortage that’s absolutely ravaging carmakers. EVs might not actually be sustainable from a business perspective — at least, not yet.

“The data is pointing to the battery cost curve coming down much more slowly than hyped. There are a lot of bottlenecks and challenges that people are ignoring,” Mio Kato, an analyst who publishes on research platform Smartkarma, told WSJ.

Most studies suggest that BEVs are only better for the environment if you purchase one after driving your current vehicle till the wheels fall off, buying something modest, sourcing as much energy as humanly possible from renewable sources, and driving it for at least a decade. Meanwhile, EV companies only seem to be profitable when backed by plenty of excited investors and supported by government subsidies.

At present, it seems a losing proposition when viewed critically. But that’s not to suggest electrics won’t eventually surpass gasoline-driven automobiles after some more R&D. The real problem seems to be that everyone championing that cause seems to be glossing over that fact in an effort to get us to the finish line as soon as possible. But that’s just one opinion and I’m always curious about the consumer consensus.

How green do you see electric cars today and what do you forecast from now until they’re supposed to reach financial parity with internal combustion vehicles? Are we on the right track or has the whole EV experiment been completely bungled by the associated marketing attempts and governmental influence?

[Image: Welcomia/Shutterstock]

Matt Posky
Matt Posky

A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.

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  • Tankinbeans Tankinbeans on Jun 22, 2021

    I'm not sure if this is strictly relevant to the topic at hand, but I've been more and more interested in a plug-in hybrid with the ~40 mile electric only range. The 40 miles would more than cover my daily driving and I'd have the gas/electric engine for my monthly 200 mile round trip to the boonies to visity brother and his kids. I've test driven a Tesla Model S, but that's been years ago. I'm not sure how comparable that car would be to the cheaper options available such as the eGolf, Leaf or any of the others I can't think of off the top of my head (I'm more aware of the plethora of hybrids available).

  • DC Bruce DC Bruce on Jun 23, 2021

    A day late and a dollar short . . . One thing never mentioned (probably because most writers are too young to have experienced this) is that, in the US at least. That is, the effect of deregulation (and resulting reduction) of airfares in the late 1970s. Prior to that, air travel was a luxury good. Most families took vacations in the family car . . . hence the monstrous trunks on late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s cars. After deregulation, the economics of long distance travel changed: not only was air travel much faster than driving but, even for a family, it became relatively less costly when you include the cost of hotels and food on the road. So, I think, the car became relatively less important for long distance (more than 500 miles) travel than it had been. Add that to the decrease in family size, and the economics of air travel become even more favorable. The use of mass transit in the US also has declined, with the rise of "suburban" cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas-Ft.Worth and Washington DC. So the car is much more important as a commuter vehicle than it was 50 years ago. All these trends argue in favor of EVs, where their range limitations and relatively long "refueling" times become less of a problem. That said, the regulatory push for EVs does not make much sense to me. A plug-in hybrid (like the Chrysler Pacifica) makes more sense as a dual-purpose vehicle that will operate mostly on electricity in daily use, yet be perfectly fine as the family vacation vehicle. Likewise, the small EV (like a Nissan Leaf) makes sense as a commuter vehicle, assuming its owner has access to nightly charging. On its merits (and without a pile of regulatory incentives) it ought to do well in competition with similar ICE vehicles (although its advantages over a hybrid like a Prius may not be great enough to support much of a price premium).

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