Are electric vehicles really good for the planet?

Source: https://exponentialroadmap.org/report/

The electric car does not produce CO2 or atmospheric pollutants. It offers many benefits, especially in the cities.

Should we all run on electricity?

Is electric car good for the planet?

The electric car is powered solely by electricity. Its engine is powered by batteries, that can be recharged at home or via a special terminal (in the street, parking, gas stations).

But how are we sure that electric vehicles are good for the planet? is it only because they use electricity instead of fossil-fuel? Vehicles with lower tailpipe emissions are perceived as cleaner. However, does it make sense to look only to tailpipe emissions? What about the emissions during production of the specific components and their appropriate end-of-life treatment processes.

How Sustainability experts compare the environmental performance of different vehicle technologies?
Therefore, in Sustainability we talk about the complete life cycle of the vehicle that should be included in order to assess the true environmental performance.

The environmental impacts of different fuels and vehicle technologies are evaluated with the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. LCA is a standardized methodology.
The life cycle assessment considers the full life of a product system and is not only limited to the production and usage of the fuel or electricity. It includes the extraction of raw materials, the manufacturing of components, the assembly, the use stage and the end-of-life treatment.

Electric vehicles have advantages: No CO2 emissions or air pollutants. Reduced use of fossil fuels (diesel and gasoline). Silent. Economic. Low maintenance.
And they have one disadvantage: the batteries !

The production and recycling of electric car batteries poses major environmental and social problems: Lithium batteries are being used for vehicles but also for their computer and electronic equipment. This increases the pressure on this rare metal lithium, a material that has become one of the most strategic on the planet.

Lithium - also known as white gold - often comes from Latin America. Its production, very greedy in water, damages the ecosystems and the survival of the local populations in areas where the drought is already problematic.

Lithium is among the elements identified as particularly sensitive by the World Bank: "whose demand is expected to increase by 1,000%, driven by the production of electric vehicles. If the risk of depletion is lower, it is the conditions of its extraction in arid regions, and in particular the high demand for water, which are worrying."

Extraction of lithium: the future environmental & human disaster

Bolivia has the world's largest reserves of lithium, 40% of the planet's stock. It has invested 1 billion euros, considering that lithium will be to the electric car what oil is to the gas car. The authorities want to make Bolivia the Saudi Arabia Lithium. They want to make Bolivia the world's largest producer of lithium and set world market prices.

Lithium extraction technology generates fewer emissions than mining. But the use of large evaporation pools 20-30 km long. Tons of brine pumped into the desert water tables are transported in huge ponds. It is this brine that contains lithium. The evaporation of pond water is a natural process that lasts twelve months. We obtain salts rich in minerals of all kinds. 

In the largest lithium mine in Bolivia, the environmental consequences of this practice could be considerable. In this already desertic region, the consumption of water necessary for the production of lithium is gigantic. The surrounding rivers are already dry. Quinoa, the main agricultural resource of the dozens of Indian communities of farmers living of quinoa, raising llamas and sometimes tourism, in the region, are the most affected by this drought. 

In Argentina and Chile where Lithium extraction is already taking place on a large scale, social development expectations have not been met. Chilean company, including US multinationals, Chinese claimed to use 100 liters of water per second, when in fact the company used 200! 

the result: the area was dry, salinization was much more important due to the greater evaporation. The Indian communities were severly impacted. And most of the profit is taken by production companies.

For a long time, tourism was the only wealth of the Bolivia Indian communities, but landscapes are today transformed to make way for the exploitation of lithium, metal essential for mobile phones, computers and batteries of electric cars. Under the salt desert.

So finally, if you holistically apply LCA, would you easily conclude that electric cars are good for the planet & people?