Why You’re Not Driving an Electric Car Right Now
It’s easy to spot an electric vehicle (EV) on the road: if no tailpipe protrudes from the rear of the car, then that car is purely battery-powered.
Because EVs do not have internal combustion engines, as found in traditional gasoline-powered cars, they produce zero emissions, which eliminates the need for a tailpipe altogether. That same battery-powered engine also provides another noticeable perk, in that 100 percent of its torque is available at any moment. This translates to greater acceleration starting from rest than that of a gasoline car, which gives EV drivers an instant leg-up in a drag race.
All this sounds great, right? If EVs are environmentally friendly and have quick acceleration, why isn’t everyone driving them? Alas, the benefits of an EV all but end there. For one, electric cars are very expensive compared to their gas-powered counterparts. A Nissan Leaf retails for about $30,000; the Chevy Volt, $5,000 more than the Leaf; and the famous Tesla Model S will set you back $70,000 at the very least.
Ozzie Zehner, a writer for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers website, ieee.org, notes that the average income of a Chevy Volt owner is around $170,000; Kirk Kardashian from The New Yorker wrote that, “[Tesla is] not selling to normal consumers, but to the people who already have a Porsche in their garage.” One can’t even blame the greedy corporate monster for how expensive these cars are; most makers of EVs have to sell them at a loss. Why then, are the cars so costly that the average car buyer can’t even afford one?
The problem starts with the batteries. Usually made of lithium-ion, these batteries are expensive and heavy; in the Nissan Leaf, for example, the battery itself costs about $8,000 of the $30,000 sticker price, and weighs almost 300 kilograms. The heavy battery in turn forces the auto-maker to replace standard parts with lighter, but more expensive ones, such as aluminum frameworks instead of steel. In addition, the inherent mechanics of an electric engine can contribute to cost, as they require components like the rare-earth element Neodymium. All in all, the materials and components necessary to create an EV aren’t cheap, and the market price reflects that.
Electric cars are also hampered by modern battery technology. The standard lithium-ion EV battery in a Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt can only travel 70–80 miles on a single charge, which is not very practical for the everyday commuter. While a drained EV battery can be charged from a standard electrical outlet, the process is incredibly slow — it would require all night to charge up.
Electric car engineers are painfully aware of the restrictions of modern batteries. To combat these challenges in electric capacity and charging time, Tesla Motors designed the Model S with the battery capacity to travel 265 miles. The Palo-Alto-based company has also been building a “supercharger” network across America. A supercharger can give 200 miles of power to a Tesla car in only 30 minutes, but this still pales in comparison to any modern gasoline car, which can refuel with over 300 miles worth of gasoline in only five minutes.
The insufficient capacity of modern EV batteries and their long charging times present worthy challenges to electrochemists and engineers, but until they are drastically improved, the public will remain wary of EVs and give preference to gasoline vehicles.
Consider a successful businessman with cash to spend and a supercharger next to his house. Would it be worth it, then, for him to buy an electric vehicle for its purported benefit to the environment? According to a multitude of experts, perhaps not even then.
Richard Pike from the Royal Society of Chemistry stated in an article on ieee.org that even if electric cars were widely adopted in Britain, it would only lower the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by two percent. Other, more sobering assessments include that of the National Academies, which concluded that the lifetime health and environment damages from an EV were actually greater than those of their gasoline-powered equivalents.
Anders Strømman of the Journal of Industrial Ecology agreed with the National Academies, stating “electric vehicles consistently perform worse or on par with modern internal combustion engine vehicles, despite virtually zero direct emissions during operation.” These experts calculated and reasoned that the emissions from electricity generation, aluminum and carbon composite fabrication, and battery manufacturing and disposal would be as environmentally detrimental as gasoline-powered vehicles.
Electric cars, as of now, are more expensive, less convenient, and possibly more environmentally detrimental than their gasoline-powered counterparts. Just to exacerbate the problems they face, EVs also have to overcome the public wariness and doubt that comes with any new technology that enters the market. For example, when a video of a flaming Tesla Model S went viral, the company’s stock dropped more than 20%. In short, electric cars have much to prove to consumers before they can enter mainstream use. Until then, they’ll remain a shiny novelty.
Yang Lin, Chemical Engineering, 2018