Electric vehicles, my perspective

A great deal of engineering effort and a great deal of political effort are being put forth to bring electric vehicles (EVs) into the modern world. EV advantages are asserted and re-asserted and re-re-asserted all over mass media, but I myself have grave doubts about those assertions. Frankly, I see many negative attributes of EVs, some of which have been written up as “debunked”, but I do not agree with those authors. I hold that there are real issues involved about which I’ve read and still do read from time to time.

Please consider the following and where shown, a related link:

1. Zero CO₂ emissions are claimed as a desirable EV trait but their electrical energy often comes from power plants that burn fossil fuels which put out the CO₂  emissions anyway.
2. EVs are extremely heavy which leads to faster tire wear. Roadway accumulations of tire dust from EVs are worse than from conventional vehicles and are a worsened source of particulate air pollution.
3. The acceleration and deceleration traits of EVs are different from those of conventional vehicles. Those EV movement traits have been reported to induce vehicle occupants into car sickness.
4. EV batteries have finite service lives and must then be replaced at costs that can be in the multi-thousands of dollars. Some buyers of used EVs have discovered to their horror that their EV battery was close to end-of-life and did indeed fail after only a short while after purchase. Also, disposal issues for old EV batteries (landfills, recycling) seem to not yet have been successfully addressed.
5. EVs can be costly to repair. There are several reasons for high repair costs as cited in this article. For example, in the interest of cutting costs of manufacture, some EVs are assembled using single-piece steel body. In such cars, one cannot just replace a damaged fender. Any bodywork such as from a “fender bender” can require metal repair work costing multi-thousands of dollars.
6. EV charging stations are vulnerable to vandalism. Charging cables are reputed (true or not) to contain enough copper to make cutting and stealing those cables profitable, thus leaving some charging stations inoperable and leaving some drivers stranded.
7. EV batteries have erupted in uncontrollable (rapid and intense) fires, sometimes even in parked vehicles. Such fires have been observed to re-ignite even when they appear to have been quelled. Such fires tend to erupt with great rapidity thus inhibiting vehicle escape and making occupant survival less likely. Although the likelihood of an EV fire is said to be less than the likelihood of a conventional car fire, the consequence of an EV fire when it does occur seems to be very much worse.

To me, the battery and battery fire issues are especially troubling. As shown in the screenshot from my cell phone below (Figure 1), in just one afternoon I came across all of these headlines and one particularly distressing image (Figure 2)

Figure 1 A screenshot of headlines found in a single afternoon related to EVs.

Figure 2 Screenshot image of an EV battery car fire.

The underlying truth is that present day EV and EV battery technologies have many shortcomings. While each of those headlines suggests that great efforts are being made toward overcoming those shortcomings, we ain’t there yet.

Maybe if I someday become personally convinced that success has been achieved and all of the above issues have been resolved, if I become convinced that my family will not be riding in danger of immolation, I might consider the purchase of an EV, but under present day circumstances, ab-so-lute-ly not.

John Dunn is an electronics consultant, and a graduate of The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (BSEE) and of New York University (MSEE).

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