The electric vehicle (EV) is, I believe, going out of fashion. And they were very much a fashion statement for a while but the practicalities of owning an EV have dawned on people and, for me, one of the great in practicalities is the fact that for the Tesla, for example, it costs about £10,000 or more to replace the battery which, has a long life but not long enough for it to not impact the resale value of this vehicle.
It’s about the second-hand value of the EV which worries me. If it is sold at say seven years of age then you have to factor in the lifespan of the battery because it may impinge upon the resale value for that second owner. And if it affects the resale value for the second owner it affects the resale value of the first owner as well.
Overall EVs are better for the environment than petrol vehicles according an assessment which you can read by clicking on this link.
That’s what I see as a practical problem and in this story, there is the problem of whether EVs are genuinely better for the environment or not. So far, I have not seen a thoroughly good breakdown to provide me with incontrovertible evidence that the EV is better for the environment than a petrol car.
I’m sure the information is out there – highly complicated though it is – but you must factor in the manufacturing process and there’s lots of mining for precious metals in order to build the battery. In this story there’s lots of destruction of the habitat of wildlife because Elon Musk was granted permission to chop down approximately 500,000 trees occupying 300 ha of local woodland in order to expand his factory in Germany.
The EV is meant to protect the environment because they are designed to protect the atmosphere and therefore help to put a brake on global warming. But in this instance, we have the direct destruction of a huge area of woodland which must go into the formula for working out whether EVs are good for the environment. It’s a big negative for the Tesla, I think.
Anybody who buys a Tesla manufactured in Germany has got to know that they had to destroy 300 ha of woodland in order to get their car. That would put me off personally.
Woodland is the home of wildlife. And trees take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for photosynthesis.
The woodland was felled between March 2020 and May 2023 in order to expand the plant which is described as a gigafactory.
The destruction of this woodland has reignited the controversy surrounding the factory and I would argue reignited the viability of electric vehicles. I read that in America that Ford has discontinued the production of EV pickup trucks because they don’t see it as financially viable. There is a falloff in interest in EVs including the purchase of Tesla vehicles.
Purchasers are realising that the Tesla has poor resale values partly because of what I mention above. And as technology is changing rapidly, the straightforward lithium battery EV is starting to look dated. Better technology is coming along which will, I would suggest, fatally undermine the resale value of the lithium battery EVs.
Consumers are aware of these problems and are drifting back to petrol because they realise, like me, that the world is not really quite ready to produce electric vehicles that are genuinely better for the environment and therefore put a break on global warming.
Personally, I bought a Prius plug-in hybrid which is a compromise car with a solar panel on the roof which charges the battery. I think is a great compromise car because you don’t have range anxiety and it is perfect for most of my driving which is around the location where I live. And often that driving is entirely free in terms of energy because it is powered by the solar panel.
But pure EV cars are not living up to their expectations and this story about Tesla is a small dent in the public profile of the EV and how we must factor in the manufacturing damage to the environment caused by these cars. There is widespread mining, as mentioned, of precious metals needed to build these cars. The marketplace for precious metals has been pretty well swept up entirely by China because they realise how important it is.
But these mining operations are probably damaging wildlife environments all over the world, particularly in Africa, as I understand it. If EVs are helping to curb climate change (and there is a big if about that) you must offset the damage done to wildlife through mining. This, too, must be factored in when deciding if EVs are overall better for the environment.
There are other factors such as the size of the SUV electric vehicles (which are the most popular), so large because they have to carry a large battery which is heavy and which damages the rear tyres giving them a short lifespan and which damages the roads. These cars are often impractical because they’re too big to park for the average driver as the parking spaces are too narrow for them.
These are some impracticalities; plus tyre wear produces small polluting particles which are thrown off the tire on to the road and into the atmosphere. These add to the overall pollution of vehicles. Okay, there’s no carbon dioxide pollution or nitrous oxide pollution from a pure EV but you have pollution from the tyres; small atmospheric particles. More issues to factor in.
More: Are hydrogen cars more environmentally friendly than EVs?
