Jon Alain Guzik on the Pollution Created by EV's
The all-new electric Mercedes EQS, produced at Factory 56 in Sindelfingen, Germany. (Photo Courtesy: Mercedes-Benz)
The Ways that EV’s Pollute, and How Companies are Working to Reduce this Environmental Impact
By: Lucas Rostler
Electric vehicles aren’t perfect. They pollute albeit in a different way than traditional vehicles. What are some of the ways they pollute?
Gas powered cars have internal combustion engines so there’s a whole slew of carbon that flows out of the tailpipe. Even with catalytic converters and all the other systems they’re making to minimize pollutants, they are still pretty dirty. You also have the pollution coming from the production of gasoline, the transportation of gasoline and the storage of gasoline. It’s a mess of carbon.
With EV’s, it’s still not one-hundred percent green and renewable even though a lot of companies are working towards that. With EV’s, it’s generally the batteries and the mining for battery components that isn’t environmentally friendly. The factories that produce the cars aren’t great for the environment either.
The mining for lithium releases a lot of pollutants into the air and is extremely water intensive. So you’re releasing pollutants and using lots of water to create these batteries that aren’t necessarily recycled. Right now only about five-percent of old EV batteries are recycled.
As EV technology improves, pollution will decrease. In what ways do you see this happening?
As I just said, only about five-percent of EV batteries are recycled. Some companies are working towards reusing old car batteries for power grid storage or smart grids within an individual home. There’s also a company called Redwood Materials, which was started by a group of ex-Tesla people that realized the supply chain for old EV batteries was broken. They focus on recycling batteries. Hopefully this concept becomes more mainstream. EV companies are also beginning to focus on sustainability in their supply chains. Right now the environmental impact in supply chains is huge, so a push towards sustainability will also help.
As a follow up to my last question, do you think that EV’s could ever reach a point where they are neutral for the environment, or even good for the environment?
I certainly hope so! I don’t have a timeframe on when that will be but the EV industry is developing technologies that focus on cleaner production of batteries and more recycling of these batteries. They are also coming up with ways to make batteries with a lot less heavy metals, batteries that last longer, and more environmentally friendly factories. Ultimately, I feel like this is a step in the right direction towards a zero emission transportation solution that’s also cleaner for the environment.
Reducing the production impact seems like an easy way to make EV’s better for the environment. How do we do this?
A lot of companies are starting to focus on this. There’s a Mercedes factory called Factory 56 in Sindelfingen, Germany where they’re making the new EQS. They’re aiming for a carbon neutral factory. So basically all the supply chains will be carbon neutral, the creation of the vehicle parts will be carbon neutral and the production of the batteries will also be carbon neutral. They’re hoping to achieve this by 2040, which might seem a really long way away, but better late than never.
To go from a system of heavy carbon production vehicles to zero carbon production vehicles is going to take years and cost hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars. But it’s good that companies are making the investments right now. GM is planning on investing $35 billion in zero emissions vehicles over the next however many years. It’s a goal where hopefully my kids and their kids will live in a world where EV’s are cleaner to make, cleaner to operate and all the power to charge them up comes from renewable energy. One can dream, can’t they?
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Borrow is an electric vehicle subscription company with one goal: to make driving an EV as simple and accessible as possible. Borrow is the only electric vehicle subscription service of its kind with a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonizing the everyday drive.