Stolen from another newsgroup

For those who think that EV's will "save" the "environment":

https://www.city-journal.org/electric-vehicle-batteries

Battery Derangement

Electric vehicles wont save the planet and wont survive without subsidies.

Mark P. Mills
October 10, 2019

"Electric vehicles stand at the center of every €œgreen energy€�
initiative. Multiple jurisdictions mandate and subsidize the inevitable
transition to €œclean€� transportation. Some policymakers have gone
further, setting deadlines for outright bans on the internal-combustion
engine (ICE), and Green pundits regularly issue forecasts promising the
imminent dominance of electric vehicles (EVs).

The EV is central to the notion that were on the cusp of a grand shift
to a €œnew-energy economy.€� In addition to its putative environmental
benefits, the EV, were told, is a better machine than an ICE. Its
easier to manufacture, uses less labor, and will€”eventually€”cost less.
Since consumers will soon demand an all-EV future, we should embrace
policies to accelerate the transition.

Rarely have so many claims about a product been so wrong. The only
unequivocal fact in the EV narrative is that more EVs exist
today€”approximately 4 million€”than ever before. Lithium-battery
chemistry€”the inventors of which received the 2019 chemistry Nobel
Prize€”along with advances in power electronics, has made it possible to
build practical, if expensive, electric cars. But everything else in the
popularized EV storyline is deeply misguided. Advocates claim that EVs
are far simpler machines than combustion engines. But the essential
€œengine€� for both is similarly complicated. While the EVs electric
motor is simple, its battery is a half-a-ton electrochemical machine
with thousands of parts and welds, along with wiring, electronics, and
cooling. Its every bit as complex as€”and far more expensive than€”the
combustion-mechanical drivetrain that it replaces.

Manufacturing automotive batteries is surprisingly labor intensive.
Teslas gargantuan battery factory in Nevada produces about 1,000
propulsion batteries per year per 12 workers. Meantime, a modern engine
and transmission factory produces about 1,000 mechanical-propulsion
systems per year per four workers. EVs dont reduce total labor
requirements; they simply outsource American labor. Since most
automakers arent capable of fabricating batteries, EV-battery jobs
reside mostly in Asia. China alone produces 60 percent of the worlds
lithium batteries. Theres no prospect of creating a domestic EV supply
chain anytime soon, regardless of incentives.

To EV enthusiasts, U.S. job losses are beside the point because ending
our reliance on fossil fuels and saving the planet takes precedence. But
it requires the energy equivalent of about 100 barrels of oil to
fabricate one battery capable of storing the energy contained in a
single barrel of oil. Importing batteries manufactured on Asias
coal-heavy grid means that consumers are just exporting carbon-dioxide
emissions, along with jobs. It takes years to offset those emissions
when the EV is plugged into our real-world power grid, where coal and
natural gas still account for 70 percent of electricity generation.

Then theres the array of primary minerals€”lithium, cobalt, manganese,
carbon, nickel, copper, aluminum€”needed to produce a 1,000-pound
automotive battery. Accessing the necessary minerals for that one
battery entails mining, moving, and processing some 500,000 pounds of
raw materials. Embracing batteries at automotive scales would lead to an
unprecedented global expansion in mining, with all the accompanying
negative environmental effects that tend not to be palliated in
developing countries.

None of this seems to concern China, which boasts 60 percent of global
EV sales. There, the EV supply chains labor intensity is a feature, not
a bug. After all, Western nations have largely given up on the related
manufacturing, as well as materials-mining and chemical-refining
industries. China has spent $60 billion cumulatively in domestic
subsidies in order to become the dominant global player, but it ended
the EV gravy train this year, cutting subsidies by 65 percent, with
plans to eliminate them entirely next year. The result? Chinas vaunted
EV sales growth went negative. Having abandoned direct subsidies, China
will now simply require that EVs make up 3 to 4 percent of all domestic
car production. Policymakers in democracies and autocracies find
mandates appealing because they are a de facto hidden tax wherein
industries, rather than government, get blamed for resulting higher costs.

Mandates and bans can enhance EV sales for as long as markets and
consumers tolerate them. But that approach makes a lie of claims that
€œEV sales are accelerating.€� Capitulating to a mandate, much less one
set to a mere 4 percent, means that were miles away from seeing a
new-energy transportation system. Sales data show what consumers
actually want. Light trucks€”SUVs and pickups€”make up 70 percent of all
vehicle sales in America. This trend accelerated after the Great
Recession, during a period of supposedly rising €œclimate awareness€� and
the emergence of the millennial car buyer. There isnt a battery option
for SUVs at a price that consumers, rather than governments, will pay.
The few successful EV-SUVs are strictly for the 1 percent crowd.

In reality, 96 percent of Americas consumer vehicles are
gasoline-fueled ICEs, and 3 percent have the diesel option, the latter
outselling electrics. The ratios are similar globally. Odds are the EV
option will eventually do far better than the venerable diesel, but the
jury is out on how much better. And arithmetic reveals that even a
100-fold growth in EVs wouldnt displace 10 percent of world oil.

In one of historys ironies, the Tesla Model S was introduced in 2012,
exactly 100 years after Studebaker ended production of its lineup of
electric cars. Back then, EVs had dominated car sales for nearly 25
years. Its taken one century since then to invent a useful battery. But
an EV is still a car with the same features consumers focus on when
making buying decisions: body style, paint, seats, cup-holders, cool
touchscreens, and so on. Changing a cars fuel source is about as
revolutionary as changing the feed for a horse.

Choosing a battery over an ICE isnt a revolution. Its an option€”an
expensive one€”that reduces neither total labor nor environmental impacts..."

Mark P. Mills, a Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow, is author of the
just-released The New Energy Economy: An Exercise In Magical Thinking.