The battery in your EV is going to derail Net Zero ambitions

Electric vehicles (EVs) are often seen as a greener alternative to fossil fuel cars, and in use they do allow cars to producer fewer greenhouse gases, but they also have some environmental impacts that aren’t commonly known. 

The largest of these impacts is related to the production, use and disposal of the lithium-ion batteries that power EVs.

Lithium-ion batteries are manufactured using various materials, such as lithium, cobalt, copper, graphite and aluminium. These materials have to be mined and processed, which can consume a lot of water and energy; and cause air, soil and water pollution . Extracting lithium from salt flats in South America means pumping large amounts of salt water from underground and evaporating it in ponds, affecting local ecosystems and wildlife. Meanwhile, cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been linked to human rights violations, such as child labour and unsafe working conditions.

Then there’s the environmental impact of lithium-ion batteries when being used and at disposal. EVs may reduce emissions on the road, but the reduction in emissions depends on how the electricity is generated. If the electricity comes from coal-fired power plants, then EVs can actually produce more emissions than gasoline cars over their lifetime. On the other hand, if the electricity comes from renewable sources then EVs can have a much lower carbon footprint than fossil fuel cars.

Lithium-ion batteries have an environmental impact when they reach the end of their life. They typically have long life-spans, but when they no longer hod a charge the only choice is to recycle them. Recycling lithium-ion batteries is not easy or cheap, and requires specialised facilities and technologies . Recycling can recover some of the valuable materials in the batteries, such as cobalt and copper, and reduce the need for mining new materials; but facilities for doing so don’t exist in many countries which will become a problem as more EVs age and require battery replacements.

In the short-term, choosing to buy an EV is going to be a marginal improvement over buying a fossil fuel car - and no improvement at all over not buying a car at all. Whilst many people are choosing to go electric, the consequences of doing so are the opposite of why they do so. 

To achieve the reductions in carbon emissions we really need, we need drivers to keep the cars they already have and reduce the amount they use them over time, until they no longer need to drive at all.