June 27, 2024Electric Vehicle Myth Busting
One of CNL’s co-founders, Sue Brandum, shares some knowledge on EV’s and busts some myths!
This comes on the heels of our EV Workshop, which is a part of our Electrify Lanark Initiative
“I have an Electric Vehicle – or EV – and I have had for 2.5 years now. I love it. And frankly, I get very tired of seeing the various posts on social media meant to discredit EVs.
So it was with particular great pleasure that I listened to Mike Banks’ presentation on Busting EV Myths and I’m happy to share a few of the busted myths here.”
EVs use more mined metals
One of the most aggravating social media posts claims that EVs use more mined metals than conventional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles do. While it is true that EVs take more mined materials in the manufacturing process, those materials are reuseable and recyclable. The mined materials used in ICE vehicles – and oil and gas extraction are considered mining – are mainly burned. “EVs require 160Kg of minerals or 100 times less mined minerals than an ICE vehicle when fuel is included,” says Banks. As well, the extra embodied GHG emissions from manufacturing EVs are made up after about 20,000 km (or 2 years) of driving.
Not enough electricity for all the EVs
Yet another “claim” is that there isn’t enough electricity to handle all the EVs. Banks quotes Stat Can: “There is enough current grid capacity to handle an instant 25% increase in EVs on the road with no changes or upgrades to the grid required. According to Stat Can data, even when 10 million EVs are added to the grid (representing about half of all cars on the road) demand for electricity would only increase by between 4.7% to 9.4% from 2022 levels.
I can speak to this personally. At a Canadian average of 50 km/day, and with most trips being relatively close to home, charging overnight from my Level 2 home charger is perfect for me. I set my car to charge after midnight so it’s taking advantage of the super cheap and excess electricity produced then.
Growth of EV sales
Would you be surprised to learn it’s not what the fossil fuel interests would have you believe? I invite you to see the information Banks provided on the growth of EV sales here.
EV Owners have to replace their costly batteries
Another top myth is that we EV owners will have to replace our big batteries very quickly and at a huge cost. In fact, EV batteries are designed to last the life of the vehicle of 15-20 years. And once they are finished working at their peak current output in a car, they are now being used for other back-up electricity purposes in homes, commercial applications and as Battery Energy Storage Systems supporting the grid. Beyond that, the materials are recycled into new batteries with 95% of the materials being recycled says Canada-based Li-Cycle battery recycling.
Range Anxiety
My personal favourite myth about EVs has to do with what’s called “range anxiety.” I’ll leave it to you to see what Banks says, but here’s my personal take: My EV is not a long-range model, but it gets 350-400 km in the summer when I do my longer-distance driving. Quite frankly, what drives my driving habits is “bladder range.” Given that my car takes 15-20 minutes to charge, that’s just enough time to get a charge, take a break, and grab a coffee before I’m on the road again!
EVs and Fire
According to auto insurance data Banks presented, Hybrid vehicles (the combination of ICE engines with old-style, non-lithium electric batteries) were the worst for fire at 3,475 per 100,000 vehicles sold. ICE vehicles were 1,530/100,000 and Battery Electric vehicles were only 25/100,000. Yes, putting out lithium fires was an issue, but fire departments are now trained on that.