Electric cars are revving up

They are expensive, due to the lack of chargers it’s difficult to take them on a long trip, and yet the future of motoring belongs to them. What do you need to know about electric cars?

This was predictable for anyone who followed trends, and it happened in Q1 2023. For the first time in the world, the most frequently purchased new car model was an electric one. It was the Tesla Model Y, which sold 267,200 in total. In second and third place were Toyotas: Corolla (256.4 thousand) and Hilux (214.7 thousand). This is according to data from JATO Dynamics. Slightly more than half of the Tesla Model Y cars sold were in Europe (JATO Dynamics took into account 28 markets). Compared to the first quarter of 2022, the sales of this model have increased by 204 percent on our continent. In 2023, Tesla planned to produce 1.8 million cars.

In Poland, at the end of July 2023, there were almost 48,000 electric cars and vans registered. In August, a monthly record was set: the share of electrified cars in the Polish new passenger car market amounted to 30 percent. – according to data from the Samar Automotive Market Research Institute.

The growing popularity of electric cars is being driven by, among other things, EU regulations that ban the the sale of new cars and vans with internal combustion engines (including hybrid ones) starting in 2035. This is one of the elements through which the Union is expected to achieve climate neutrality in 2050. By then, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 90 percent from their 1990 levels. In the EU, transportation is responsible for nearly a quarter of these emissions, 60.6 percent of which come from passenger cars (data European Environment Agency, 2019).

It’s an ambitious and daunting task, as transportation is the only sector in the EU where, between 1990-2019 greenhouse gas emissions have increased, and by 33.5 percent, so the EU estimates that the real decrease in emissions could amount to 22 percent (instead of the assumed 90 percent).

BEV, HEV or a plug-in?

When talking about electric or hybrid cars, we often come across terms like BEV, PHEV, HEV. So let’s decipher those abbreviations.

BEV, or battery electric vehicle, is an electric-powered car that doesn’t have an internal combustion engine. This is the hero of our article.

HEV is a hybrid electric vehicle, a hybrid car with internal combustion engines and electric motors, as well as a small battery that charges only while driving (it recovers energy when braking or slowing down). Its electric motor has a very short range – up to 2-3 km.

PHEV, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, is the most electrified type. It can be charged from an external source and has a much larger battery than the HEV. Thanks to this, it can travel between 30 and 100 kilometers on an electric motor (depending on the model).

MHEV, or mild hybrid electric vehicle. The main source of propulsion of such a car is an internal combustion engine, supported by a small electric generator.

FCEV stands for fuel cell electric vehicle, or fuel cell (hydrogen) car.

The eco-friendly choice

Electric cars are supposed to be the auto industry’s answer to the climate crisis. And indeed – compared to internal combustion cars they have many advantages, although they are not as green as they may seem.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Exeter and Nijmegen conducted a study, which shows that in 95 percent of places in the world it is better for the climate to drive a BEV car than one with an internal combustion engine. Electrics can reduce emissions from transportation by 70 percent in countries such as Sweden and France (which derive most of their electricity from renewable sources or nuclear power plants), and by 30 percent in the UK. And as one of exceptions, the researchers point to Poland, whose power industry is based on coal.

In its report, the German organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe states that new electric cars registered in Europe emit 75 g CO₂e/km over their entire lifespan. That’s 69 percent less than gasoline cars (250 CO₂e/km).

Where does this come from? And why do we call them zero-emission then? Despite the fact that during driving they don’t emit greenhouse gases, the production of energy to power them often involves emissions (depending on its source), and also the manufacture of the vehicle itself is an energy-consuming process. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have calculated that the production of an electric car is responsible for about 80 percent more emissions than an internal combustion car. To produce a battery, the minerals it’s composed of must be heated to a high temperature. For example – producing a battery for a Tesla Model 3 with a capacity of 80 kWh produces 2.5 to 16 tons of CO₂ (depending on the source of energy used for heating).

Certainly, electrics help reduce air pollution because they don’t even have an exhaust pipe. However, this doesn’t mean that they don’t contribute to the formation of smog. Like all cars, they lift dust from the ground when starting and braking, and they themselves produce it by abrading tires and brake pads. This is known as secondary lift, which is one of the one of the elements of smog. Electric cars are heavier than internal combustion engines, so they cause more abrasion.

Ah, those batteries

When discussing electric vehicles, everything revolves around batteries – their cost, charging, range, recycling and even combustibility.

The fact is that the production of lithium-ion batteries (or more precisely, rechargeable batteries, we blogged about it here before) is hardly environmentally friendly. With the growing popularity of electrics, there has been an increased demand for lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite – the elements from which batteries are made of. Extraction of lithium involves the use of huge amounts of water – 3.5 million liters are required for 1 kg of the element. Half of the world’s cobalt reserves are located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is not uncommon for children to work at mines, and those employed there extract cobalt with their bare hands, working in dangerous conditions and for minimum wages.

Production and use are, for now, two of the three stages in the life of any battery. The third is its recycling, and this is currently one of the biggest challenges we face when it comes to electric cars. Car batteries have a lifespan of about eight years, so very soon all of the recently manufactured cars will need to be replaced. Greenpeace estimates that between 2021 and 2030 there will be nearly 13 million tons of used up batteries from cars (one weighs 300-500 kg). What to do with them?

Perhaps such a battery can be used as an energy reservoir (after all, it still has 80 percent of its original capacity), used to provide emergency power for streetlights or 5G stations. It can be used in electric bicycles or storage carts.

Researchers from Łukasiewicz – PIT and other companies and institutions are working on developing a reverse logistics model for these batteries. The BatteReverse project aims to create a new generation of reverse logistics for lithium-ion batteries (we write about it in detail here).

The biggest challenge is to recycle these batteries. The goal is to recover raw materials from them (the world’s supply is limited, after all) and use them to make new batteries. The Renault Group, together with Veolia and Solvay, has developed a technology for extracting and purifying metals from used batteries. It allows the recovery of more than 96 percent of cobalt and more than 98 percent of lithium.

This doesn’t change the fact that most batteries from electric cars in the European Union are shipped to China to be recycled there. That’s because Chinese companies control the battery recycling market. Its value is estimated at $11 billion and is expected to grow to $18 billion by 2028. Minerals from one car battery are currently worth between 1,000-2,000 euros.

How much for one charge?

Range is the key word when it comes to electric cars. Every year, Italy hosts the EcoBest Challenge, a test of electric car models in real traffic (e.g., with air conditioning and navigation on). In 2023, only two cars – the Tesla Model 3 and Hyundai Ioniq 6 – exceeded a range of 600 km. The rest of the cars surveyed drove between 374 and 555 km on a single charge.

The problem, not only in Poland, is the small number of chargers. In our country in August 2023 there were less than three thousand, a number that is growing rapidly. Still, this means that a longer trip in an electric car needs to be planned very carefully. Besides, charging the batteries takes longer than pouring gasoline into the tank.

Fires are also a problem. Although electric cars burn less often than internal combustion engines, extinguishing them takes much longer and requires different measures. In Poland, the record for suppressing an electric car fire was 21 hours. Firefighters had to bring in a special shipping container in which the car was placed and then flooded with water. The biggest problem with such a fire is extinguishing and cooling the battery.

BEVs won’t be allowed to park in many underground parking lots due to a fear of fire. In Poland, there are no regulations that prohibit them from parking in such places, but many building managers explain that their fire protection systems are not designed for electric cars.

In China, on the other hand, parking a Tesla has been banned in many places out of fear of… espionage. This is because the Sentry mode, which is supposed to protect these cars from intrusion, has turned out to be problematic. When someone leans against the vehicle, it displays a message on the screen that all the cameras inside the car are recording them. It proved too suspicious for the Chinese authorities.