Electric Cars: Fatally Flawed?

hey trader gang it's world ev day september the 9th okay it might not be if you're watching this in the future but either way september the 9th is the day that's been invented to celebrate electric vehicle ownership across the world a little pat on the back for ev owners to say well done for making the switch and that got me thinking should you make the switch should the people with petrol and diesel cars chuck their old fossil burners in the bin and get with the program well i've taken a good long look at the state of electric cars and i'm going to give you both sides of the argument reasons that people put forward for not buying an electric car and then i'll try and counter those reasons basically arguing with myself to give you reasons as to why maybe you should let's start with the negatives number one they cost too much it's true there are quite a few electric cars that have petrol equivalents and without fail the battery-powered models cost more than the petrol ones a mini hatchback for example starts at 16 995 a mini electric 26 000 pounds 9 000 pounds more a petrol hyundai kona costs 21 kona electric 27 950 600 pounds more and that's with the government chipping in with a three and a half grand oled grant so it doesn't matter where you look or which manufacturer you go to cars with batteries cost more than cars without batteries number two the range and recharging are rubbish this one it's not always the case there are plenty of electric cars that can go a long way but you usually have to pay a ton of cash for that privilege but on balance most normal electric cars don't go as far as their petrol alternatives that many electric i just mentioned only goes like 140 miles if you're lucky the petrol model can probably do twice that distance and you can refill it in about five minutes recharging a mini electric takes half an hour to get from 20 to 80 percent if you use a rapid charger number three they're not actually that green yes they don't have any tail pipe emissions but you still need power stations to generate the electricity and those often run on coal gas and all sorts of other fuels that aren't green in the slightest number four electric cars are still harmful to the environment where do the raw materials for batteries come from the graphite the cobalt the lithium the manganese lithium extraction uses extraordinary amounts of water which is often water that's diverted away from local communities that actually need it and chemicals from the production of lithium can enter the water supply which is bad for animals and people cobalt i mean 70 of the world's cobalt comes from the democratic republic of congo where human rights are maybe not as high on the list of people's priorities as they should be number five the batteries can't be recycled what happens to them at the end of an electric car's life good question and finally number six electric cars are such a small contributor to climate change that there's no point in making the switch not when ships and planes and other forms of large scale industry do so much more damage there those are the most common concerns put forward for not buying an electric car and on world ev day no matter what side of the fence you stand on it's important we look at those reasons because those are real concerns stopping real people from really making the switch to this technology but now we've looked at some of the concerns in the interest of balance we also need to confront them head-on because in some cases they're not as valid as you might think okay let's get back to the first argument about pricing yes electric cars are more expensive but when people say that they're usually just looking at the headline price things might be a little bit different if you look at the total cost of ownership where an electric car could work out cheaper than a petrol or diesel i'll give you an example with some quick maps on the mini hatch versus mini electric using official fuel economy figures most people in the uk drive around 8 000 miles a year doing that petrol will cost you around 1 000 pounds for the year which works out to be 83 pounds a month the mini electric is far cheaper to run the cost of electricity for 8 000 miles a year works out to be as little as nine pounds 52 a month so the more you drive your electric car the cheaper it becomes and the more you save the second issue is tax if you run a company car you'll have to pay benefit in kind bik that's the tax that in the case of petrols requires you to pay literally hundreds of pounds every single month on top of the price of the car for an electric car the tax is next to nothing so the ev works out cheaper then there's other savings to be had from things like congestion charging and lower maintenance costs so petrol and electric are actually closer than you might think in terms of price and that's now in the future batteries are gonna get far far cheaper by the time 2030 rolls around evs will be cheaper than petrol cars are now and here's why battery prices are falling quickly according to bloomberg nef batteries used to sell for more than 1 100 per kilowatt hour a decade ago now that's dropped to 137 dollars per kilowatt hour they reckon we'll hit 101 per kilowatt hour in 2023 but by the time it hits a hundred dollars per kilowatt hour that watershed moment that's when electric cars will become as affordable and as profitable compared to equivalent combustion engine cars and as battery prices continue to fall it won't even make sense to buy petrol or diesel because they'll be too expensive number two the range and recharging are rubbish in some cases for some people yes some cars just don't go as far as we want them to but here's the thing most people in the uk have a commute of around 22 miles a day electric cars can do that easily it's important to look at the journeys you actually do rather than the journeys that you think you might do and most people just putter around and charge overnight and then go again and if a car doesn't have a good enough range buy a different one one that actually does have the right range for you a tesla model 3 can go 350 miles that's damn near london to edinburgh okay what do you do if you don't have a charger at home or off street parking like i said most people don't drive far even a mini electric which hasn't got a long range can cover the 22 miles or so that most people do every day on a full charge it will last an entire week so you can charge once a week on a saturday or sunday at a supermarket or a cinema or a restaurant while you're doing something else it's not perfect but most people don't fill up their petrol cars every day and you don't necessarily have to do that with electric cars either number three they're not that green correct they're not perfect definitely not as green as riding a bike or walking but they are better petrols and diesels emit harmful gases into the environment evs don't so evs put out less toxic stuff in the places where humans actually live cities towns etc yes they do rely on power stations to generate their electricity and the energy grid isn't totally green especially in places like america but the situation is better in europe and it's improving all the time in the uk in 2008 only 10 of our power came from sustainable sources in 2018 that figure reached 33 if we continue on that trend the majority of our power will soon come from renewable sources and you don't actually have to wait there are plenty of energy providers that can put you on energy tariffs that use a hundred percent renewable energy i'm on one and actually that tariff is cheaper than the non-renewable terrace right number four they harm the environment yes the battery production industry does need to clean up its act we need laws in place to stop them damaging the environment in the production of batteries but i think that's a matter of protocol almost everything that humans extract from the earth can be extracted in either an ethical way or an unethical way we just have to force industries to choose the most ethical methods oil and gas extraction is bad for wildlife i mean it's been known to cause wars for goodness sake google blood diamonds palm oil production and by the way palm oil is in almost everything leads to deforestation and is a menace to local communities look at the social and environmental impact that avocados for goodness sake what we need to do is to change the way we operate change the way we extract the ingredients we need for our stuff and in some cases change the ingredients themselves then the end product in this case batteries could be cleaner too i mean you're probably watching this on what a laptop or a phone am i right which uses what batteries so let's keep that same energy if it's okay for your gadgets then keep an open mind it might be okay for cars too like i said it's a matter of protocol let's not rule out batteries let's force the battery makers to make the batteries in the best way possible number five the batteries can't be recycled what happens to them at the end of a car's life now this one needs a whole video by itself and i might make it but the bottom line is that they need to do more according to some estimates only five percent of lithium-ion batteries are recycled but there's going to be 30 million electric cars on european roads by 2030 so this is something they're definitely going to have to tackle and tackle pretty soon volkswagen credit to them they have a pilot recycling plant in germany renault they're now recycling all of their electric car batteries and they're pushing to recharge batteries from other companies as well and i think they will do more and for one simple reason in europe we don't have a lot of the raw materials needed to make batteries so recycling old batteries is going to be the best way of getting hold of a lot of these raw materials recycling will happen it has to and number six cars are such a small contributor to climate change that there's no point in making the switch not when ships and planes and other forms of large-scale industry do so much more damage and then there's the other argument the country that you live in contributes so little to climate change compared to a different country again this is one of those that might need a whole separate video and i might make it but let's keep it brief here that logic is the same as saying i might as well throw litter on the floor because the guy next door throws way more litter on the floor than i do it's like saying there's no point in trying to climb a mountain because it's too tall you have to make that first step or you're damn sure won't make the last one action can make a difference and every time we want to make a difference that's the one thing we need action okay so that's it for me guys obviously we do all still have a big mountain to climb with this transition to electric but i do hope that i've at least opened your mind on the subject and given you a little bit of food for thought on both sides of the argument i'm definitely going to drill down into a lot of these subjects in deeper detail over the coming weeks and months so if you want to see me cover anything in particular then make sure you leave a comment down below but as always don't forget to like subscribe leave your thoughts in the comments i'll see you on the next one peace you

Channel: AutoTrader

Views: 197,828

Keywords: Electric cars suck, Tesla suck, Hydrogen cars, Why hydrogen, Why electric cars, Electric car, Petrol ban, Diesel ban, Carwow electric car, Worst electric car

Id: KpR9czw3t4I

Length: 11min 51sec (711 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021