Flawed arguments against electric vehicles
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Sally Brown-Pawlosky’s arguments against electric vehicles in the April 10 edition have several significant flaws.
Her statement that the batteries of electric vehicles contain heavy metals is misleading, because electric vehicle manufacturers have transitioned away from batteries with higher levels of these metals to iron and phosphate and other chemistries that use much lower quantities of these heavy metals. The smartphone batteries that we all seem to be totally dependent on contain much higher levels of heavy metals than electric vehicle batteries, but I don’t see her arguing against their use.
Her argument that electric vehicles pollute the air 1,800 times more than their gas-powered counterparts is totally false. The study that The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post referenced compares the tailpipe emissions of particulates to the particulates created by rubber tires as they wear down. The study found that modern exhaust systems filter out nearly all particulates, so on average the particulates from tire wear are 1,850 times higher on average than from exhaust. No electric vehicles were included in the study. By inference, the study states that electric vehicles, due to the weight of their batteries, could wear their tires faster than a comparable gas-powered vehicle.
It is also false that electric vehicle brakes wear faster. Due to an electric vehicle’s regenerative braking, the components of their traditional braking system last almost indefinitely. There are reports of electric vehicles with hundreds of thousands of miles on their odometers that still have their original brake pads.
The argument that the manufacture of electric vehicles consumes 68% more energy is debatable, but even if correct, the huge energy saving in fuel consumption over the life of the vehicles dwarfs the energy penalty in their manufacture.
I am the first to admit that electric vehicles are not for everyone for a variety of reasons, but I am excited to see what the continued development of electric vehicles will bring in the next five years. Electric vehicles are good for the environment now and will be even more so in the future.
William Shader
Venetia