The Inherent Problems with EVs That No One Wants to Talk About!

Electric vehicles (EVs) are all the rage right now. Between flashy TV ad campaigns and political rhetoric about the technology, everyone is being led to believe that EVs are a silver bullet for our climate problems. 

EVs are cool. EVs are fresh. EVs are modern. But EVs also have a slew of problems that few people are willing to talk about. The latest car ads don’t tell you about the massive lithium mines popping up in exploited areas of the world. The politicians don’t have answers about what to do with mountains of old car batteries. 

Tesla doesn’t want you to look up how much it is to replace the battery when it starts to fail. EVs are new and exciting, but they are also raw, and they have a host of issues with few good solutions.

I really want EVs to work but unless these problems are solved, they are not going to be a viable solution for the future.

Constant Lithium Mining

Until battery technology changes, the backbone of the entire electric vehicle industry is lithium. Lithium is an unstable, nonrenewable resource that is mined out of the Earth. Lithium mining is dangerous and bad for the planet. Most of the lithium deposits are in South America, Australia, and China.

That means that not only are EVs driving a boom in lithium mining, but most of the lithium also must then be shipped around the world on trains and ships which do not run on electricity.

Lithium is so important to the modern economy that some people are describing it as the next oil. Like oil, lithium mining is bad for the planet, and lithium is nonrenewable. Every single lithium-ion battery produced must use processed lithium to make. A single Tesla battery can use up to 12kg of lithium. Tesla sold over 1 million units in 2022. That is a lot of lithium.

Battery Replacement Cycles

Another issue that is rapidly approaching is the battery replacement cycle. No lithium battery lasts forever. Every time you charge and deplete, and recharge a lithium battery, it loses efficiency. Most people are familiar with this process through their cell phones which slowly lose battery power over time. The same thing will happen to electric vehicles. Most EVs are new enough that this has not become a problem yet, but it will be soon.

What do you do when your EV battery no longer charges or holds charge? You will need a new one. That can cost a lot. The cost to replace a Tesla battery can run anywhere from $10k to $20k.

The cost is going to push people into buying new cars rather than nursing their old cars along, which is going to create more waste, more emissions, and more lithium usage.

Outdated Electrical Infrastructure

My house cannot be outfitted with an EV charging station. I don’t have a garage, and the local electrical infrastructure in my neighborhood is not what you would call robust. I have a single wire that droops lazily across my front lawn and connects to a single connection point at the top of my house. Even if I could put it in a charging station, I don’t know if I would want to. My power already fluctuates and trips on a regular basis.

My neighborhood is rural, and my house was built in the 1950s.

My situation is not unique. Over 70% of America’s electrical infrastructure is more than 25 years old. These poles, lines, and transmitters were designed and built long before the idea of EVs was a thing. Old electrical infrastructure is vulnerable to storms and wear and will not necessarily be able to handle the increased load applied by millions of new EVs. What happens if you have a storm that knocks out your power for days at a time? Not only will you not have power to your home, but you will also be stranded without a car.

Battery Fires

One of the most enduring and terrifying problems with EVs is the potential for extremely dangerous fires. Lithium-ion batteries can produce some horrendous fires. The danger is so bad that New York City is cracking down on eBikes that have certain lithium batteries.

The eBikes have started causing damaging fires in the city, which are raising concerns. Electric cars have the same inherent danger. An electric vehicle can turn a minor fender bender into a lethal incident if the battery erupts into flame.

I lived in Fort Lauderdale when a person died in a car fire after his electric vehicle battery exploded. The fire was so hot it vaporized the man and left nothing but a thin layer of ash behind. This is something that is becoming more common. Firefighters are struggling to cope with the fact that EV batteries are extremely difficult and dangerous to put out. This enduring fire problem is one that is going to haunt EV development until it is solved or mitigated.

Battery Disposal

Another issue that has yet to become major but will soon is what to do with all these EV batteries. As we discussed, these cars are going to start wearing out and going to junk yards. But the batteries are very large and potentially dangerous.

The batteries shouldn’t be crushed, shouldn’t be put in a landfill, and can catch fire. One of the last things you want is a battery to ignite a landfill pile and cause an environmental issue.

As these batteries start hitting landfills and junkyards, they are going to pose a disposal problem that is going to need to be addressed or solved. Right now, there are no good solutions in place to deal with the potential influx of hundreds of thousands of spent EV batteries.

Electricity Fuel Sources

The last enduring problem with EVs is the source of the electricity fueling them. In many cases, power generation is still being done via coal, oil, and gas. While America’s electrical providers are investing in upgrades for green energy, we are a long way from a green future. The best solution to this problem would be to embrace nuclear power. Nuclear power could create nearly unlimited supplies of clean electricity to power every EV in the world. But nuclear investments have stalled in North America.

Meanwhile, President Biden just approved an $8 billion investment in new oil drilling projects in Alaska. If you are plugging your car into an outlet powered by a coal fired plant, is it any better for the environment?

If you bought your EV new, then no. The manufacturing process for cars combined with a dirty source of electricity makes the car a net negative in terms of carbon and environmental impacts.

Conclusion

No one likes to hear tough questions, much less answer them. Will EVs be worth it if we trade oil drilling for lithium mining? Will EVs still be in vogue when massive increases in power demand drive companies to return to oil and gas for power generation? What are we going to do with the old batteries? Who’s footing the bill for the battery replacement cycle, or the infrastructure upgrades needed to power these cars?

Any time I bring up these questions, people roll their eyes and mumble that EVs are still better than gasoline powered cars. But I am not convinced. Not yet.

Invest in nuclear power. Find a way to recycle the batteries. Develop batteries that last longer and don’t heavily rely on exploitative lithium mining. Then the future might be powered by quiet and clean EVs, but until then they might end up being a fad with more problems than solutions.