EVs Need Long-Term Love to Live Up to Their Engineering

Americans are on the fence about converting to electric vehicles. We need honest discussions about how they will be used.

If you’re in the market for a new passenger car or work truck, you’re probably looking hard at EVs. I’ve written, for example about the Ford Lightning pickup truck, a sleek, powerful machine with enough batteries on board to run a large house in a power outage.

But the market has slowed a little, and car makers are getting nervous. What’s happening?

A new survey from Parks Associates finds that “Inflation and interest rates are up, and consumers perceive electric vehicles as expensive, challenging to charge outside the home, and limited in range.” 

As a result, purchase of EVs has declined slightly since the Pandemic settled into its current hesitancy.

Missed Details and Misconceptions

Looking closer at those consumer concerns, however, you find ultra-simplifications and huge gaps in understanding. Rarely do buyers or sellers do ALL of the math needed to evaluate an EVs pros and cons. 

For example, a major consideration is the range of the batteries. Newer models achieve about 250 miles on one charge. The average daily commute is about half an hour, although the data shows large groups of people both above and below that range.

The bottom line is that an EV, under the right circumstances, with the right level of use, has plenty of range, and significantly reduces the lifetime CO2 footprint compared with a fossil-fuel powered equivalent. But there’s a catch. You have to keep and use it correctly.

What is correctly? Let me give you three key goal posts.

1. Drive it for a Long Time.  A study published in The Harvard Gazette found that “Aggregate utilization below 55,749 miles may – in the United States at least, - fail to generate any emissions benefit over ICEVs.” What that means is that EV owners who sell or trade in their EV for a new model prior to reaching higher mileage DO NOT RAISE THE BAR on CO2 emissions. This is due largely to the high environmental cost of EV batteries. In theory, if someone buys the vehicle used and continues to drive it past that mileage, the vehicle should continue to offer reduced emissions, but if the previous owner is jumping into a new EV, they’re creating substantial CO2 impacts over a short time frame.
2. Power it with Renewable Energy. Even with “dirty” energy from a fossil fuel power plant, an EV will, over time (and miles) beat a gas powered car in pollution reduction. But the path to that threshold is much shorter if the owner uses renewable energy to recharge the vehicle from the get-go. 
3. Don’t Ignore Gas-Free Dividends. Savings on gasoline by switching to EVs should be rolled into any payback estimate. The average family spends about $5000 annually on gasoline for vehicles. That adds up to a “kickback” of $25,000 over five years—about half the initial cost of an EV (averaging about $53,000 at this writing).

Source. Note how over longer periods of ownership, EVs become less polluting per mile, especially if the energy source is renewable.

EVs can be charged with solar only, but takes a little longer, and may require significant panel square footage. On average, an EV can be recharged from the average daily commute in about 3 hours of sunshine. But different vehicles require a much greater panel array to hit that market. As this article explains, A Ford Lightning, will need about 12 410-watt panels to match commuting output. A Hyundai Ioniq 6, by comparison, will require only about 6 panels. 

EVs Yes, But With Caveats

About 5 percent of US households own an EV, and the auto industry has been re-gearing for a massive shift to EVs over the next decade. At least two car companies, GM and Volkswagen, have announced plans to make 100% EVs by 2035.

We need the transition away from combustion-powered engines. Efforts to move us toward bikes, mass transit and other modes of transport are worthwhile, if comparatively small impacts. And the problem of battery production, recycling and longevity still has an uphill climb to achieve what could be called a sustainable halo. 

The important takeaway? Converting to EVs now does reduce our CO2 pollution, but only if the car is kept for many years, charged with renewable energy, with attention to the end-of-life plan for the batteries especially.