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Is producing electric car batteries bad for the environment?
My neighbor and I can’t see eye to eye on anything, and now he’s all over me because I bought an electric car. He says that buying electric cars is actually bad for the environment because the battery manufacturing process is so polluting. Please tell me he’s not right. Is producing electric car batteries bad for the environment?
Bellina Gaskey · Updated on
Reviewed by Shannon Martin, Licensed Insurance Agent.
Great news—your neighbor is wrong! Although electric cars do consume more energy during the manufacturing process than gas cars because of the battery manufacturing, the amount of energy consumed is still far less over their lifetime than that of a gas-powered car.
Electric car
batteries
have high environmental costs because of their manufacturing. The batteries require rare earth elements like lithium, nickel, graphite, or cobalt, which have to be mined from under the earth’s surface. Mining activities have notoriously polluting practices, so needing materials that have to be extracted through this manner make electric car batteries bad for the environment.However, it’s not as simple as that. Even though
electric car
batteries are harder on the environment during the manufacturing process, they more than make up for it during the lifetime of the vehicle. Gas-powered vehicles run on an internal combustion engine (ICE) that takes gasoline and converts it into energy through a chemical reaction in the engine. This combustion process puts out a lot of fumes and emissions, which is the stuff you see coming out of a tailpipe. These emissions have proven to be awful for the environment.
Electric car batteries don’t have a chemical reaction that creates emissions. There’s still a chemical reaction of sorts, but it creates no fumes. This means electric cars produce zero emissions during their lifetime, allowing them to bridge the gap and surpass gas-powered cars for eco-friendliness.
To put this in perspective, 74% of a gas vehicle’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from the vehicle’s use, and it expends approximately 375 grams/mile of GHG during that time. An electric vehicle’s majority of GHG use is for the methods that go into creating the electricity it consumes, which is called the feedstock. For example, oil and coal create energy that goes into the electrical grid an electric car pulls its energy from. 65% of the approximately 150 grams/mile of GHG an electric car uses comes from the way the electrical grid is fueled.
Once we can use clean, renewable forms of energy to fuel the power grid, electric cars will become even more eco-friendly.
No matter whether you drive a hybrid or fully electric,you need affordable insurance.
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