Are Electric Vehicles Green?

 Are Electric Vehicles Green? 

Around the world, governments and automakers are promoting Elctric vehicles(EV’s) as a key technology and solution to curb oil use and fight climate change. The EV’s market is expected to be worth around at least Rs 475 Billion by 2025. The penetration of electric two wheelers is projected to reach up to 15% by 2025 from 1% currently. In the Net Zero Emissions Scenario, 85% of 2/3-wheelers, 55% of buses and 25% of heavy trucks sold globally are electric by 2030. The number of electric vehicles on the world’s roads is surging. That would seem to be a good news, as the world tries to shift from  fossil fuels that are ruin the global climate. 

As EV’s  become more popular, some question arises. 

A. How environmental friendly they are? Like the charge on power that is coming straight off the electric grid - which is itself often power by fossil fuels? And there are questions about how energy intensive to build batteries and the Electrical vehicles(EV) versus building a comparable traditional vehicles.

The Shorter answer is YES. - But the full green potential is still far away. 

i.       EV’s produce zero tailpipe emissions. A switch from internal combustion engine (ICE) to an electrical one eliminates all direct emission during the use of a vehicle. This is a massive benefit for our air quality in towns and cities. Especially in the people concentrated urban area. One electric car on the roads can reduce an average 1.5 million grams of CO2 in a year. 

ii.      The research reports says that electric vehicles create a lower carbon footprint over the course of their lifetime than do vehicles  that use traditional, IC engines, The study reports published, EV’s emit almost three times less CO2 than the equivalent Petrol or diesel vehicles when comparing the lifecycle emissions. 

iii.   The Renewable energy ratio of the electricity grids in most of the world are increasing. Many countries are working on carbon neutral grids. India has promised to cut its emissions to net zero by 2070 as key goal of the COP26 summit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has raised India's nationally determined contribution (NDC) target of non-fossil energy capacity to 500 giga watts (GW) by 2030, from just over 151 GW currently. Half of the country energy from renewables by 2030. It means the 50% of the energy you use to charge the EV will be green energy. 

iv.    Some of the research papers are published on the study of Producing electric vehicles leads to significantly more emissions than producing fossil fuel vehicles which is mostly from battery production. And they found that the battery and fuel production for an EV generates higher emissions than the manufacturing of an automobile, But those higher environmental costs are offset by EV’s superior energy efficiency over time. 

v.      What’s more , EV’s can also help with noise pollution especially in cities where speeds are generally low. 

B. Can Lithium- ion batteries be recycled? 

Yes, Lithium- ion batteries are recyclable, but the process is a bit complicated. People who point to a lack of a recycling infrastructure as a problem aren’t recognising that we don’t need extensive recycling infrastructure yet because the EV’s are so new, we are not generating the volume of  recycling feed yet. Most auto companies are already working to ensure they have significant recycling capacity in place before EV’s start reaching the end of life over the next decade. Reusing and recycling batteries is also a growing market near future. One day we could all have batteries in our homes being used to store our own energy, opportunities like this will reduce the lifetime environmental impact of battery manufacture. 

C. The Effect of the EV’s on the Grid? 

According to a study by McKinsey & Company, their analysis suggests the projected growth in e-mobility will not drive substantial increases in total electrical- grid power demand in the near future.  Though there won’t be any significant increase in total power demand due to the uptake in EV sales, it will likely reshape the electricity load curve. This will mostly be due to an increase in evening peak loads when people charge their’s EV’s at night. However, this effect will only represent a relatively small percentage at most.This means there is no need for new electricity-generation capacity for the time being. the use of smart charging solutions can control the timing and amount of power used. Smart charging allows charging station owners to monitor, manage, and restrict the use of their devices remotely to optimise energy consumption depending on the peak and off peak schedules. 

In short the total emissions per kilometre for battery powered cars are lower than  IC engines vehicles. Driving Electric vehicles creates a more peaceful environment for all of us. Electric vehicles are the way to Green vehicles. Electric vehicles (EVs) are currently positioned as a promising step on the road towards sustainable mobility.