Electric or gas-powered vehicles?

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People are becoming more aware of environmental issues and are beginning to take action to address them. One of them is the transition to electric vehicles, which, as it turns out, is a bad idea. Although these vehicles provide us with new sensations, incredible speed, and technological innovations that make our journey or life easier through the use of various amenities, they are not the solution to the global problem of greenhouse gas emissions. Although I am a huge fan of these devices and their automotive applications, I’d like to look at it from an ecological standpoint and mention a few facts. We’ve been seeing this issue for a long time. In recent years, there has been a significant trend of promoting electromobility as the only correct direction for the automotive industry. Otherwise, we face a bleak future. The issue is that we don’t know the truth about electricity.

Why is the technology of these cars not so great?

-the amount of energy that we are able to contain in a given volume. Gasoline is among the batteries in this respect. 12.9 kWh of energy is enclosed in 1 kg of gasoline. Electro-optimists believe that the cell density of the future is to reach about 0.5 kWh/kg. Currently, Tesla achieves in the range of 0.22-0.25 kWh / kg, which is 52 times less than gasoline. This means that to close the same energy as in a kilogram of gasoline, we need 52 kg of electric cells. However, despite the fact that the petrol engine will transfer only 45% of the accumulated energy to the energy driving the wheels, and the electrician 95%, it is still unrivaled in favor of petrol.

-Despite the claim of zero emissions when driving electric vehicles, the production process of batteries is forgotten, the process of extracting the raw materials necessary for their construction, such as lithium, cobalt or nickel are just some of the elements whose deposits are limited. Everyone talks about running out of oil and little is heard about the deficiencies of the mentioned elements. And the extraction of these elements requires, to a large extent, almost artisanal work of minors in Africa.

-Green NCAP-checked the full life cycle of individual cars to calculate their overall emissions. The results were surprising. Combustion cars did not remain in the shadow of electric cars, achieving not so much worse results. However, it must be admitted that electric ones emit less greenhouse gases over their entire life cycle than internal combustion cars. But that doesn’t mean they’re organic either. They will be defined as a commercial product, where environmental costs are set aside for future generations. “Ecological is walking, not driving”

Let’s look at this problem in more detail. It turns out that it is not motorization that is destroying our planet.

Approximately 50 gigatons of greenhouse gases are emitted annually. The main sources of global emissions: about 73% is energy consumption, and road transport generates less than 12%, including cars and trucks. So in the worst case, passenger cars take up only a few %. Even the entire replacement of combustion cars with electric cars would not eliminate these percentages, because they would be transferred to other sectors responsible for electric energy and the production of these cars.

Since cars are a small percentage, where should we look to reduce gas emissions?

It turns out that China is responsible for 38% of all global emissions. Adding the USA and INDIA together, they account for 60% of all emissions, while all of Europe is only 8%.

So does anyone really think that a European ban on combustion cars will bring any relief to the planet?

It turns out that it does not and much other and more serious factors have an impact on it, which should be dealt with first, rather than waging a war over technology, which provides us with amazing opportunities, changes our lives and, despite the fact that it is not the best source of salvation for our planet, because as we already know there are more important things that affect it, we need it immensely.

Thank you for reading.

Resources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/climate/electric-vehicles-environment.html

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/are-electric-cars-really-better-for-the-environment/

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2 thoughts on “Electric or gas-powered vehicles?

  1. 47504 says:

    Great article and well-reasoned points about the limitations of electric vehicles as a solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. You bring up some important points about the energy density of batteries compared to gasoline and the environmental costs of mining and producing the materials for electric car batteries. In my opinion, our future is hydrogen-powered cars, but this technology is not that advanced yet.

  2. Maksymilian Wower says:

    Funny thing driving Tesla in Poland is like driving a old coal train. Another thing is a problem of used batteries which aren’t fully reusable and contain loads of chemicals. Personally i believe in hydrogen cars and I would focus on that technology more or at least on sth more sustainable

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