Are electric cars going to save the planet? The government would like you to think so. The current administration has promised that half of all cars sold in America will be emissions-free by 2030.

If the goal is the reduction of CO₂, something is amiss in the emissions claims. While the common perception of electric vehicles is that they’re carbon-neutral, they’re definitely far from it.

Sure, from consumer’s perspective as an end-user, it seems simple: Plug your car into an electrical outlet and permanently kiss the gas station goodbye. That sounds really good right about now with the high price of gas — without even talking about gaining popularity points for virtue signaling love for the planet.

But is it really as simple as plugging in and kissing the problems goodbye? There is something missing from this oversimplified picture. What in the overall cost/benefit analysis is being hidden in the electric vehicle pitch? Electric car owners can self-righteously claim, “There’s no CO₂ shooting out of my tailpipe, unlike your stinky car.”

But they can’t claim that they’ve totally eliminated their carbon footprint.

First, we ought to be asking, where’s the energy to charge these batteries coming from? Electric cars don’t run on the ethereal dreams of climate alarmists. Most electricity in this country is still produced from coal and natural gas. For example, in Colorado in 2019, 70% of electricity was generated from coal and natural gas. The other 30% was generated from wind, solar and other renewables. So for now, we’ve mostly only managed to shift the CO₂ emissions-point from the car’s tailpipe to the powerplant’s smokestack. That’s not carbon neutral.

Second, the extra cost of buying electric vehicles can’t be magically mitigated by government subsidies. There are a billion vehicles on global roads that would have to be replaced, and already if you want an electric car in America, the usual waiting list varies from 6 to 24 months, not counting further supply chain disruptions. If you can afford one, more power to you, but for most people it’s out of reach. We simply don’t have the raw materials to produce the amount of batteries that would be needed to make enough electric cars.

Third, due to the energy requirements of mining, production, distribution, etc., at the showroom floor conventional vehicles have already added 6 tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. But when an electric vehicle appears on the showroom floor, it has already added 12 tons of carbon. That’s twice as much energy consumed in its manufacture, due in large part to more mining and the production of its batteries.

Add to that the environmental impact of disposing of or recycling these batteries, and the geopolitical complications of obtaining lithium and other metals, and numerous hidden costs become hard to calculate.

Fourth, what about the charge-time requirements and practical limitations of mileage-range per battery charge, which varies greatly dependending upon how many batteries your vehicle carries. The more batteries, the greater the costs, and the lower the efficiency of moving all that excess battery weight.

Weight is the biggest downside to electric vehicles with current technology. Energy density, when it comes to batteries, refers to the power-to-weight ratio of stored energy. Gasoline stores a hundred times more power per pound than lithium batteries. That’s why you can load 72 pounds of gasoline (10 gallons) into a small car and travel 350-400 miles. Not so much with heavier battery packs. We still need a technological breakthrough in energy storage before electric vehicles can compete in terms of range. If that happens, you’ll see wholesale conversions of fleets of tractor-trailers and even aircraft running on electricity.

But that day is not here, yet. Electric vehicles will certainly be an ever-growing part of the future. But until there’s a physics breakthrough in the energy density of storage devices, they are not yet as viable as is promised.

The most practical solution, given current tech, are plug-in hybrids, but they, too, have their disadvantages. It will probably be at least a few decades before we see the full-scale reality of the "electric-car solution" that is being promised today.

Myth-busting the current environmental benefits of electric vehicles

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