Electric Vehicles Are Not the Solution
Ditching cars entirely is the only way we can have a real chance at fighting climate change.
Over the past several years, we have seen remarkable growth and interest in electric vehicles (EVs). While they largely attributed this to Tesla, nearly every legacy car manufacturer has invested billions of dollars in developing their own electric vehicle platforms to not only compete with Tesla, but to phase out their own internal combustion engine offerings and replace them all with electric vehicles.
This shift has been touted by climate scientists, policy makers, and climate activists as a step in the right direction to combat climate change. Many of these vehicles proudly sport “zero emissions” badges on them to signal their ecological credentials and their virtuous superiority over internal combustion vehicles, at least in terms of pollution. But these badges, along with all of the hype and the flashy marketing, are misleading.
Of course, these vehicles, while in use, do not produce harmful greenhouse emissions, unlike cars with internal combustion engines. But, that does not mean that these electric vehicles are really zero emissions. A key factor that few seem to ever consider has to do with charging these vehicles.
What is the source of the power used to charge these vehicles? In most cases, unless you live in an area that exclusively uses renewable energy, the electricity used to charge the batteries of these electric cars is not clean. Most likely, your electric vehicle is powered by coal or natural gas, as those are the sources of nearly 60% of the electricity produced in the US overall. In some places, these numbers are higher, and in others it is lower, but on the whole, electric vehicles are almost always powered by fossil fuels.
But even if you live in an area that only uses electricity generated by renewable sources, hardly anyone ever mentions the manufacturing processes of electric vehicles. Like all other vehicles, EVs are made of metal, and these metals are mined from the earth through a highly energy intensive process. Unlike other vehicles, EVs use one particular metal in far greater quantities: lithium. This is because lithium is a main component of the giant batteries EVs used to store energy, as most of them rely on lithium-ion technology.
Sometimes referred to as “white oil,” prospectors are scouring the world to open up massive new lithium mines and quarries. These sites are like giant wounds on the surface of the earth and they are extremely harmful to the environment; chemical runoff from the mining activities heavily pollutes the water supply of local communities, often resulting in them having to flee the lands they have lived on for centuries, if not longer.
Anyone who thinks that buying an electric car is part of the solution to fighting climate change is sorely mistaken. While EVs may be cleaner than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines while in use, the crucial problem is that EVs are still automobiles.
If we are to take climate change seriously and do everything we can to mitigate its harmful consequences, then we must rethink transportation altogether. We need a real paradigm shift here, as Thomas Kuhn described it, rather than simply just swapping one kind of motor for another.
The current paradigm, which dates back to the early to mid-twentieth century, is one in which entire cities have been designed around each individual having a personal vehicle to get around. This entire model is wholly unsustainable, regardless of whether those vehicles are powered by combustible fuel or electricity (that is often generated from fossil fuels). The amount of metal alone that needs to be mined and extracted from the earth to produce each vehicle unleashes large amounts of greenhouse emissions and has disastrous impacts on local communities.
Instead of designing cities around automobiles — and Los Angeles is the city that pioneered this idea as it rose to prominence at mid-century — cities need to prioritize public transportation and walkability so that we can stop relying on automobiles altogether. American cities, especially, are notorious for their immense urban sprawl and suburbs, requiring that inhabitants travel great distances just to get to work or run errands to meet up with friends and family. People in these urban environments have virtually no choice but to get a car because walking is not an option and public transportation is typically inefficient, underfunded, and inconvenient, if offered at all in these places. To go anywhere, people in many American cities and their environs can only get there by car.
Car-centric urban design is a failed experiment and it should be moved away from entirely if we are to have any real chance at fighting climate change. Elon Musk and the legacy automobile manufacturers are trying to sell you the idea that EVs are the future because of their “zero emissions.” But this is yet again another exercise in marketing and repackaging that is part of the very consumerism that has caused climate change. Tesla has not changed anything at all. Musk is no innovator. He has merely found a way to keep selling people cars while continuing to destroy the planet, and he is raking in the profits.
Rather than simply switching to EVs, we need to think more structurally and paradigmatically in order to take on climate change in a profound and long-lasting manner. A model where sprawl, single-family home zoning, and unfettered consumption is in place will never work to mitigate climate change, regardless of the type of vehicles that are driven. We need more cities that are dense, walkable, and have excellent public transportation. This is the only way we can finally move away from cars entirely, which in addition to helping fight climate change, would also save the lives of over one million people worldwide who die in car accidents.
