Electric Cars
Electric cars are the new vision of sustainability. Surely, all city dwellers wish for their air to be cleaner and free of nitrogen particulates not to mention the free electric charging that has been offered in various cities such as London to encourage take-up. To quote some of the advantages:
“Car tax - officially termed Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) - is based on a car's official tail-pipe CO2 emissions for a first year rate. After the first year, a standard rate applies to all cars, with three core exceptions.
A premium rate is charged for years 2-6 for models costing more than £40,000 when new, whilst alternatively fuelled vehicles - including pure-electric, plug-in hybrid, and hybrid cars - qualify for a £10 Alternative Fuel Discount. Finally, pure-EVs - those with zero-tailpipe emissions alone qualify for zero VED, including an exemption from the premium rate.”
Source: https://www.nextgreencar.com/electric-cars/buying-guide/tax/
Of course what with the war in Ukraine, the price of electricity has sky rocketed because electricity is produced from gas and sanctions on Russia are now biting. Rosie Beattie from Crawley also says that there is also a contentious matter of the rare earth minerals such as lithium and cobalt that are mined to produce the car batteries. These are toxic to mine and process and the batteries as yet, cannot be recycled or disposed of to approved standards. There is also a global shortage. If all nations were to switch to electric vehicles, there would not be sufficient rare earth minerals to support this. Also, much of the processing happens abroad in countries that employ child labour and the processing is toxic and dangerous to life. The question is whether the problem is being pushed elsewhere. Not only that, but is an additional ecological problem being now produced because of the trend in ‘doing the right’ thing, when in fact, this type of industry is overall detrimental to the earth and those workers within it.
A recent article points to a new supply, but the processing issues remain and once fully utilised, what then?
Rosie Beattie Website Environment CSR ESG
