The EV landscape has tremendously changed over the last decade and is about to evolve even more in the next. Innovations like solid-state batteries are set to facilitate electric car evolution by reducing charging time and increasing battery range and lifespan. Plans by major automakers to ease off the production of gas-powered cars in favor of future electric cars are underway.

Some manufacturers like Jaguar are looking to produce only electric cars as early as 2025. While EVs are known to be environmental-friendly, quieter, and cheaper to maintain than their ICE counterparts, they are expensive to acquire and inconvenient to recharge. This explains why EVs make only about one out of 250 cars on the roads. But technological breakthroughs in the EV industry are soon going to solve these problems.

Are Electric Cars Really the Future?

The world is way behind schedule in the pathway to net-zero emissions. In attempts to catch up, governments are incentivizing people into buying EVs and pressurizing automakers to start producing all-electric vehicles. While electric vehicles are good for the environment, the industry’s future is not as straightforward as it may seem.

Electric car future predictions hinge on three major facets. First, battery technology must ensure the convenience of electric cars of the future. Second, supporting infrastructure needs to be expanded. And finally, the cost of future electric cars needs to be lowered. There’s no way we are going to have all-electric vehicles on the roads when it takes hours to recharge one car or when there are inadequate charging stations. Fortunately, the progress in battery technology so far is highly promising.

A wide variety of EV models that can recharge in under 25 minutes are now available to customers. That’s not all, the battery range and lifespan for newer models are becoming good enough to make EVs a better alternative to ICE cars. Just imagine the range future electric cars will do if the Lucid Air Pure can manage an impressive 520-mile journey on a single charge in 2023. Looking at the current developments in battery technology and existing plans to expand charging infrastructure, electric cars are predicted to outdo gas-powered cars convenience-wise and triumph as the future of road transport.

What Electric Cars Really Impact the Environment

Unlike ICEs, EVs do not produce any emissions from exhaust pipes. However, this does not mean their existence has no impact on the environment. EVs also have a carbon footprint, albeit lower than that of gas-powered vehicles. Since the electricity used to recharge EVs comes from coal or natural gas, the carbon pollution emitted by producing the electricity is squarely attributed to EVs. Hence, using green energy to recharge electric cars of the future means zero pollution from them.

EV batteries won’t end up in landfills as most people think. Once EV batteries live up to their lifespan, they can be recycled or reused in businesses or households as secondary energy storage devices. Perhaps, the biggest impact EVs have on the environment is associated with the battery manufacturing process. The extraction of raw materials utilized in the production of batteries such as cobalt and lithium poses environmental issues.

In areas where cobalt is mined, the slag waste from the mining process usually seeps into nearby soil and water, contaminating them with harmful cobalt metal. Lithium mining also requires large amounts of groundwater, which interferes with water availability for local inhabitants.

Different Car Companies Going Electric Before 2030

The electric car evolution has begun with most automakers communicating their plans to go electric in the coming decade. Some are aggressively rolling out all-electric vehicle models to show their commitment to the zero-emissions goal. For instance, Toyota and Volkswagen Group have set a new milestone by revealing their plans to introduce 70 new future electric car models in their pipeline.

Bentley has announced plans to transition entirely to EVs by 2030, with a financial commitment of $34 billion to support this undertaking. Other manufacturers that have capped their deadline for producing only EVs by 2030 include Jaguar, Cadillac, Volkswagen, and Volvo. Mercedes has revised their timeline for selling only EVs, bringing the deadline forward from 2040 to 2030. This was in response to the EU's proposed ban on selling internal combustion gas and diesel vehicles by 2035.

Are There Enough Batteries for Electric Cars?

Having sufficient batteries to power electric cars on a large scale is one of the greatest impediments to the future of electric cars. The most advanced batteries used by EVs now are lithium-ion batteries. Lithium is a critical component in the manufacture of these batteries. That’s why the supply of EV batteries heavily relies on the availability of lithium.

Our planet has vast lithium deposits - 88 million tons discovered so far. But only a fraction of it (about one quarter) is commercially viable to extract. While this is enough to cater to battery manufacturing needs in the foreseeable future, extracting it is still a big challenge. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 450,000 tons of lithium will be required to produce EV batteries by 2030.

Considering that only 105 tons were produced as of 2021, and it takes a few years to complete the mining process, the EV industry could be plagued with battery scarcity in the future because of lithium shortage. The good news is that experts continue to discover more extractable lithium, which adds to the accessible reserves.

Also, given that lithium from old batteries can be recycled to aid in the manufacture of new ones, a greater recycling rate could come in handy to help meet the rising demand. On the brighter side, a revolutionary new battery technology (the solid-state battery) is being developed to solve much of the battery problem. If this technology works as intended, mass production and adoption of EVs will occur sooner than anticipated.