Just a few facts and comments to ponder over.
These are not my personal thoughts as such. They are mainly from the pro EV site autoexpress.co.uk....
I think they express a balanced view and highlight some of the solutions to battery production and charging etc
1.Concerns need to be addressed over the environmental and humanitarian impact of battery production. The Committee of Climate Change warned last year that if the UK’s 31.5 million cars were to be replaced by EVs by 2050, the process would demand almost twice the current annual global supply of cobalt. Multiple this by all the countries in the world with many more cars than UK then ask how much of the world would be devastated to produce enough cobalt for all the batteries?
Roughly 60 per cent of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo – one of the most politically unstable countries on Earth – and, of that, 20 to 40 per cent comes from ‘artisanal’ mines, where the metal is dug out by hand, often by child labour, in unregulated conditions.
Poor African Children loose their lives daily digging with bare hands while we go about congratulating ourselves that we have done a good thing by buying a product that contains the cobalt they were digging for to their death. Is this ethical?
2.Some, manufacturers are looking at cutting the amount of cobalt in their batteries. Elon Musk, for instance, has promised the next generation of Tesla cars will not have any cobalt in their batteries at all, and all of the brands spoken to as part of a 2018 investigation (Issue 1,555) say they are committed to ethical sourcing, to ensure there are no human rights abuses in their supply chains.
So is cobalt the electric car’s dirty secret and will it remain so?
Does the EV user have a moral duty to highlight this issue?
3.Lithium-ion battery production is another issue, because it can create devastating side effects when it goes wrong – such as toxic chemical leaks, which destroy local habitats of fish and other wildlife.
Do we spare a thought for the Havoc the production of the lithium-ion HVB in our car may have caused to humans, wildlife, plants and habitats elsewhere in the world?
4.In order to improve efficiency and get as much use out of new batteries as possible, battery recycling and ‘second life’ systems are being implemented by various manufacturers. One example is Honda, which has a scheme to collect old lithium-ion and nickel-hydride batteries from 22 countries, allowing them to be reused in applications such as home energy storage.
Mercedes is another company that’s making ambitious plans to advance its battery technology. It’s currently working on a replacement for lithium
– something that will take a number of years. In the meantime, the firm is planning to use silicon anodes instead of carbon, which will reduce CO2 emissions at the point of recycling, and increase EV mileage from a single charge by around 20 per cent.
Should all EV users be involved in and be promoting battery recycling even for small domestic appliances?
5.Solid-state technology is the next big step in battery advancement. This will see the current liquid electrolytes replaced with solid electrolytes, resulting in a weight reduction and a predicted efficiency improvement of around 35 per cent. Should EV users wait passively or should we push for these changes to be brought forward?
6.Further developments in weight reduction and efficiency will come when lithium-sulphur batteries come to market in EVs, possibly in the early 2030s. After this, we might see fully compostable organic batteries, which will not only be the best environmental option, but will also allow for very fast charging times.
7.Hydrogen
Hydrogen fuel-cell power is something that a few manufacturers – including Toyota, Honda and Hyundai – have invested a lot of time and resources into developing for use in passenger cars.
Although the hydrogen as a fuel source has its merits and almost certainly has a future in large haulage vehicles, the car industry as a whole has placed its bets on direct electric power instead. This is due in no small part to concerns over the methods used to produce hydrogen, and questions over how it can be safely stored.
8.Hydrogen for charging
One way hydrogen could still be applied with fully electric cars, though, is when it comes to charging. Last year, UK-based firm called AFC Energy unveiled a new hydrogen-powered rapid charger called CH2ARGE.
The system sees tankers deliver compressed hydrogen to on-site units that use it to generate electricity. This is then stored in a 40kW battery, from which a nearby rapid charging unit can draw power.
9. Deliveries
With more people than ever choosing to do their shopping online – be it for groceries, clothes, electronics, or just about anything else – the topic of last-mile delivery (a parcel’s final trip from depot to door) has become more significant.
Typically, around half the cost of shipping a package comes in the last few miles of its journey to your home. With consumers getting used to incentives such as free shipping, and less willing to pay for postage and packaging, courier companies need ways to save MONEY. Electric vehicles could be a huge help in this regard. Unlike their petrol and diesel counterparts, they aren’t affected by the clean air zones popping up in cities all around the world.
In addition, they’re cheaper to run and require less servicing than internal combustion-engined vehicles. There are also a number of compact electric delivery vehicles on the market, which can be helpful in narrow city streets.
Should more pressure be put on the Amazon's, Uber and Tescos of this world to use only BEV delivery vans / cars and should they in turn pressure the BEV manufacturer to ethical source their batteries?
10.Charging
Another one of the big barriers to the widespread adoption of electric cars is charging. Motorists used to the splash and dash refueling of petrol and diesel cars don’t like the thought of being immobilized for hours on end while their electric cars take on a charge. And those without off-road parking wonder how they would find somewhere to top up at all. In reality most people could recharge an electric car in the huge amount of time that their current petrol model sits dormant and those lacking parking spaces could plug-in at public charging locations but if wireless charging technology could be brought to fruition even the naysayers could be brought round.
Wireless electric car charging: is EV charging without cables the future?
You park your car on pad, that can theoretically be placed under the road surface, and this charges its battery with no need to plug in. It’s the same with the charging pads for smartphones, just bigger. The technology exists and various companies are working to bring it to market. A trial for wireless charging taxis has been announced in Nottingham.
What’s a little further off is dynamic wireless charging - the ability to charge a car while it’s on the move. Tech firm Qualcomm has demonstrated a system that can charge a car from beneath the road at speeds of up to 70mph but we’re some way off getting that on the M1.
EV manufacturers and consumers alike are however somewhat adverse to frequent charging and believe the solution to the charging issue is to increase battery capacity till the average EV can comfortable travel 500 miles on a single charge.
Apparently this tech is already available and in principle when other tech is incorporated will result in cheaper cleaner batteries. So why the dragging of feet?
All said and done as EV users we are all trying to do our best with what we have but I will beg that we always that a moment to think about those whose lives are devastated in the process of manufacturing our EVs and opt to do things which will in due course alleviate their suffering.
