Dear Editor:
I see more and more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road. Tesla led the way but just about every make is here now. Drivers are landing on EVs.
There’s still some doubt and criticism out there and this should of course be considered, but the direct experience is at hand by many people. I haven’t yet come across an EV driver who decided to go back to a gas vehicle.
The sheer number of combustion gas engines and the decades they’ve been around has challenged us to remember that exhaust is very bad. It’s actually deadly. It appears to disperse in the air and is largely invisible, so we’ve not paid much attention to it when we do our commutes and errands. But there is a lot of evidence of the negative health effects and the global warming effects of vehicle emissions. It has driven many manufacturers to look for alternatives.
One of the most impressive things about EVs is the efficiency. With gas, we fill up and that’s the fuel we’ve got. But an EV produces power as we drive. We can use a charger, but it also generates power when we drive at lower speeds, when we coast, brake and go downhill.
I just drove 35 kilometres but only used 18 kilometres of battery power because of what I added on the way. I can go around town on errands and have more power than when I started. The stop-and-go adds power instead of idling away gas. Oh, and no exhaust.
Gas cars burn fuel to warm up and when pausing at red lights. EVs go right away and power down at red lights. It makes for a fun ride.
To the wider criticisms, I’m skeptical that charging EVs yet draws much power from the grid, compared to all the electric heat in homes, appliances and tools. We can also charge late at night when there is little demand, so this poses little stress on the grid. That may still need attention as EVs increase, but I don’t think it’s going to be near the energy needed now and net pollution created of getting crude oil from the ground and then to being gas in our pumps. We’ve got to swing away from that, and we can.
The Canada Energy Regulator compares CO2 emissions of cars by province which considers how electricity is generated. On their site, search “EV CO2” to get a market snapshot and interactive graph. When selecting “Yukon,” EVs and plug-in hybrids do much better than basic hybrids and gas cars (known as ICE – internal combustion engine).
Some suggest to not embrace EVs due to the mining practices for lithium and cobalt needed for the batteries. But EVs aren’t the only reason for that mining. These elements are also in cell phones and computers. Should we give those up, too? Cobalt is also widely used in oil refining (so it’s also problematic for gas car users). Cobalt gets around.
That isn’t to say that mining methods and issues shouldn’t draw our attention. But it surprises me how critics focus on this issue while overlooking all the elements and materials extracted over the last 100 years to produce the 1.6 billion cars (mostly gas cars) ever made.
If we’re making cars, we’re probably mining. Mining can be improved. Electrification can be improved. Cars have improved.
It’s true that battery production creates greenhouse gases that combustion cars don’t. But several analyses show something else. Looking at the emissions over the life of the car, from extraction to disposal, far fewer emissions are a result of EVs compared to gas cars. It’s always the fuel used for the years of driving that causes the greatest impact. That pushes gas cars up and EVs down. Examples of this EV life cycle assessment can be seen at the International Energy Agency (iea.org), and International Council on Clean Transportation (theicct.org).
The EV is here and it’s pretty sweet. We can do errands and travel far fume-free. The tech is long-awaited and enables us to charge ahead.
-Ross Burnet lives in Whitehorse and has used gas, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and EV vehicles.
