Myths (and a few facts)

Most people that walk up to EV owners when they park just want to ask what the range is (most common question). Second most common is how/where do you charge it, and that’s probably followed by asking if you like it. Very few people ask the important question (Would you buy it again?). And even fewer than that will give you advice that they read on the internet. After all, all things on the web must be true. In no order whatsoever, here are the facts behind a few common myths:

The batteries in an EV will be really expensive to replace.

This goes back to the very first Prius I bought. I didn’t have it a week and 10 people had told me that the batteries were going to cost me thousands to replace and I shouldn’t have bought the car. In reality I put over half a million miles on two different prius’ (not really evenly either), and never had a battery problem. I suppose there could be some truth to this - the batteries would be expensive to replace if the entire pack had to be replaced outside of warranty. I specifically chose the vehicles I drove (Toyota + Tesla) because I think those companies know what they are doing with batteries. There are other companies getting into the EV field that I am less confident in and who may be selling ticking time bombs, so this is probably not going to go away, but may actually get worse as certain brand owners discover that an air-cooled battery really isn’t going to last very long. Like anything, solid engineering pays dividends. Do your research. The cheapest cars are rarely the best buys.

You can find people who have replaced the engines in their brand new gas cars, but they are few and far between. Even fewer EV owners have replaced their battery backs.

All cars emit pollutants, some from the tailpipe and some from the electricity plant.

This is probably one of the most amazing ones to hear. Even a coal powered electric plant supplying through tons of distribution will emit less garbage into the air than a gasoline powered car. This has been studied extensively, google it. The internal combustion engine is simply one of the least efficient means to produce power that we have, it just happens to be cheap to produce in quantity after years of practice.

In terms of green energy, the Tesla Supercharger network is (to a surprising degree) powered by Tesla Solar installations. Some solar cells are even at the charger sites.

Electric Cars emit more CO2 when they are produced.

This largely depends on the vehicles. Production of some battery cells can emit CO2, and sometimes a lot of it (this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer). Most manufacturers are working to make battery production efficient. And in that process, emissions are reduced. Major manufacturers are working very hard at this because the more efficient they can make batteries, the cheaper they can sell the cars (or the more they will profit on each one).

The manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries harms the environment.

Look at that image. Look at the absolute destruction of the earth in the top photo of a copper mine. Yes, of a copper mine, and one of the largest in the world. It’s not a lithium mining site. Even though the photo says it is.

The batteries inside the Tesla are called “Lithium Ion”, but that is slightly misleading. Lithium Ion batteries come in many varieties, and their cathodes have plenty of other minerals in them. Tesla batteries, in fact, don’t even have much Lithium in them.