All smoke and mirrors, or answer to our fears…

In this post I will be discussing the strongest arguments on the side opposing the proliferation and adoption of EV’s. In researching this side of the argument I was struck by a number of things, one being the outright hopelessness found in the tone of some of these pieces, and two the concerning number of pieces written by think tanks funded heavily by oil corporations. Regardless, lets present their positions.

Many of these articles focus on the environmental cost of producing the batteries found in electric vehicles, for example in this article the author harps on the claim that while EV’s may provide gains in efficiency during their operation, those gains and more are offset by the cost inherent in the resource extraction necessary for the manufacturing of these vehicles. The issue I take with the article isn’t the opinion, but instead the reliance on data from a certain study published by the Manhattan Institute, I was rather shocked by the findings of this study and decided to do a bit of digging to better understand the organization which funded this research and found that they received sizeable donations from Peabody Coal, and Exxon Petroleum.

More legitimate concerns are voiced in this piece in which the economic benefits promised in the adoption of EV’s is dissected and found to be problematic. They determine that the benefits, or lack thereof, depend heavily upon the carbon intensity of the region in which the EV is used. In other words if the power grid is dirty, then the energy pumped in to the EV from the wall sockets will also be dirty.

The importance of regional power grid efficiency and vetting of sources has been displayed here, as for the overall answer to the question of EV’s efficacy, the argument for will have to answer to these questions.