PRICE ON: ELECTRICITY OFF

Are we being properly informed by our MSM (mostly silly media)?

I’ve been good lately and mostly resisted the urge to stick it to the electric vehicle (EV) fanatics, but a recent interview I listened to, involving the Associate Minister of Transport and a well-known radio host, fired me up to carry out some research of my own, as it was clear that the associate minister was piling the BS on in great dollops.

Having recently spouted about the new tax on petrol and diesel vehicles, affectionately alluded to as ‘feebate’ by critics, which was supposedly designed to make us rush out and buy an EV, I found that the associate minister’s statement about the adverse environmental impact of the necessary destruction of the tyres on our current fleet had me falling about the kitchen floor laughing uncontrollably!

According to the associate minister, the tyres on our current fleet of four million vehicles will need replacing after some eight years, so presumably there will be about 16 million tyres to dispose of. What made me laugh, though, was the statement that this could be significantly mitigated by the advent of EVS, which by implication seemingly do not use tyres. Excuse me? According to my research, EVS require a special type of tyre due to the different type of power being delivered to the wheels. I have not been able to establish just how long a set of tyres on an EV will last, because there are no statistics available as yet, but assuming for the moment that they last as long as those on petrol/diesel vehicles, then in eight years won’t we have exactly the same number of tyres to dispose of? The associate minister didn’t seem to grasp that EVS also have four wheels, and, as a consequence of the innovation, also have four rubber tyres — five, if you count the spare.

The announcer did tackle the issue of just what is involved in producing the EV batteries, but the associate minister went silent on the question of whether child labour was involved, and, when the questioning got too hard, she claimed she had another meeting and hung up! The arrogance of that did not escape some listeners, if their subsequent texts were any indication.

So, on behalf of my 41 loyal readers, I checked out what was happening abroad. In the UK for instance, where there is/ was a mandate to have 100 per cent EVS by 2035, there won’t be enough raw materials worldwide to supply the demand, which could mean that the cost of an EV will go through the roof. This is supported by Tesla’s global supply manager, Sarah Maryssael, who told a recent closeddoor Washington conference of miners, regulators, and lawmakers that Tesla sees a shortage of key EV minerals coming in the near future. (Source: Reuters.)

Research

Of interest too was an opinion published by one Mukesh Malhotra, founder and CEO of Ecoforus Sustainable, who said, “It might come as a surprise to many but, contrary to popular belief, Electric Vehicles, which were hitherto thought to be a viable and environment-friendly alternative to carbon-emitting vehicular fuels such as petrol and diesel, are equally hazardous to the environment, if not more [hazardous]. In fact, recent studies have corroborated the fact that EVS are considerably worse for the climate than diesel cars”!

Malhotra goes on to say that, according to a study by Christoph Buchal of the University of Cologne, EVS have significantly higher CO2 emissions than diesel cars.

Why is this, I hear you asking? Well, according to Christoph, a whopping quantity of energy is used in the mining and processing of lithium, cobalt, and manganese, which are crucial raw materials required to manufacture the batteries for EVS. He says it takes more than twice the amount of energy to make an EV as it does to make a conventional car, and the main reason is the battery. He also said that a typical EV battery pack can release 73 to 98g of CO2 into the air for every kilometre; added to this are the CO2 emissions from the power plants that power such vehicles!

Remembering that the main reason for pushing EVS on to us were the supposedly rising air pollution levels across major cities, and the resulting risk of people developing severe cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including lung cancer, as put forward by the World Health Organization, EVS are also not really a safer option.

Factoids

Harking back to the UK for a moment; there are currently 31.5 million cars on UK roads, travelling 252.5 billion miles a year. If all those cars were replaced with EVS today, and assuming the most resource-frugal next-generation batteries were used, it would require the following:

• 207,900 tonnes of cobalt: just under twice

the annual global production

• 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate:

three-quarters of the world’s production • At least 7200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium: nearly the entire world production of neodymium

• 2,362,500 tonnes of copper: more than half the world’s production in 2018. Bernstein Research has stated that increasing graphite and lithium production from the modest current levels is theoretically possible but doubling nickel production over a period of 17 years would require a Herculean effort, and the doubling of copper production would be nigh-on impossible!

It’s a pity our Associate Minister of Transport hadn’t done a bit of research before foisting this clean, green nonsense on to us petrolheads, eh? And let’s not forget those eight- to 10-year-old kiddies in African countries who are forced to work to extract the cobalt either.

I struggle to find any proper information on the topic of EVS in any of the viewspapers I happen to have access to, and there are no stories about the hapless people who own a Nissan Leaf that has a stuffed battery. (Last time I checked, replacement batteries were still prohibited imports.)

My advice, based on some limited research, is that I wouldn’t touch an EV with the proverbial bargepole. A good reliable classic car is still the best way to go.