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Electric cars – turning the hype into reality

Virtually every car manufacturer has over the last year exhibited an electric concept car, and governments around the world have collectively pledged to spend almost £10 billion tax breaks, grants and subsidies over the next ten years to promote EVs.

Electric cars have the potential to play a significant role within a sustainable transport system, but it is difficult to disentangle media hype from the stark reality of ‘decarbonising’ transport.

Electric cars and the environment

The idea that a wholesale switch to electric cars would automatically reduce CO2 emissions and dependence on oil was one of a number of myths dispelled by a recent report conducted by the European lobby group Transport & Environment, an organisation co-founded and supported by the ETA.

The report found that whilst there were significant potential environmental benefits to be had from a switch to electric vehicles, these were wholly dependent on changes in the way electricity was generated, energy taxed and CO2 emissions regulated. Current European legislation contains loopholes that are likely to lead to emissions and oil use going up.

How could electric cars ‘increase’ emissions?

Binding European targets for car CO2 emissions agreed last December include ‘super credits’ that enable carmakers to sell up to 3.5 gas-guzzling SUVs for every electric vehicle they sell and still reach their official European target. Electric cars are also counted as ‘zero emissions’ despite the fact that the electricity they use can come from high-carbon fossil fuels such as coal.

The combined effect of these loopholes would be that carmakers that choose to market electric cars to meet European targets would have to do less to reduce emissions of conventional cars. The overall effect would be higher CO2 emissions and oil use. Furthermore, even if the national grid has the capacity and the basic infrastructure to meet the needs of electric cars, the new demand patterns they will create may mean greater use of coal and nuclear power.

The report was not intended to dampen enthusiasm for electric vehicles, but rather warn that their introduction should not be viewed as a panacea; significant changes to the way we produce and tax power are needed before we will reap benefits:

In terms of the performance of electric cars, those powered by wind or solar energy are obviously superior, but if the electricity comes from coal, hybrids perform better.

The purchase price of electric cars remains a barrier to ownership for the majority of motorists. There is potential for improvement in performance and reduction of costs in the medium term, but not enough to suggest electric cars could compete head on with conventionally-powered car in the immediate future. Low running costs of electric vehicles would lead to extra demand for car transport and make necessary the taxation of electricity.

According to the report, the most certain way to promote electric-powered transport is to tighten long-term CO2 standards for cars to 80 g/km by 2020 and 60 g/km by 2025 whilst at the same time increasing fuel taxes. A lack of stringent CO2 standards removes the main incentive for motor industry to invest in electrification. Electric cars must be rewarded for their energy efficiency, not for moving emissions from exhaust pipes to power station chimneys.

Promises, promises

Oxford University predicts that the number of cars on the world’s roads in twenty years will double to 2 billion, but that electric vehicles will account for only a small percentage of the overall fleet in the medium to long-term. This possibility does not appear to have dampened the enthusiasm of the car manufacturers; September Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Renault-Nissan and Toyota last year predicted as many as ‘few hundred thousand’ electric vehicles with fuel cell on the roads from 2015.

The electric vehicles we are promised include all manner of innovation:

• Solar panels incorporated into the roof of an electric car can add up to twenty miles per day to its range – although clearly this will work best in sunny climes.
• Regenerative braking makes use of the energy lost when a vehicle slows to replenish the battery. It saves on brake pads, but increases the range of the car by a relatively modest amount.
• The bio-plastic body panels used in various electric concept cars are lighter than steel and are derived from renewable sources such as vegetable oil, corn starch or seaweed as opposed to conventional plastics which are made from petroleum. Petroleum-based foam can be swapped in favour of a soybean-derived alternative, seat covers made from hemp-based fabrics.
• Cars of the future may draw heavily on mobile phone technology for everything from entertainment to crash-avoidance software. The iChange electric concept car features a body that adapts to the number of passengers on board and adjustable seats and car ignition all controlled via an iPhone.
• Water companies have the benefit of reservoirs, but the national grid has no such storage system and must second guess our habits in order to match supply with demand. If electricity could be stored in a cost-effective way then power stations could operate in a more efficient way. If most of us were driving electric cars that were re-charged via the national grid, their batteries could provide the answer. Car batteries would take power from the grid overnight and send electricity back into the grid at peak times. A network of millions of electric cars as ‘micro energy storage devices’ could improve the stability electricity grids and help balance demand
• Current electric cars can take as long as eight hours to recharge, but future models may use battery exchange. Each car would have a satnav able to pinpoint the nearest garage with a fully-charged battery, which could then be quickly exchanged for the depleted one.
• Fuel cell cars use hydrogen to power electric motors doing away with the need to charge batteries – these vehicles can travel longer distances than electric vehicles that need to be re-charged directly from a mains supply. A DIY hydrogen generator, no bigger than a fridge and due to go on sale within 2 years, will allow householders to produce their own power for household appliances or an electric car.
• The interiors of future electric cars may be radically different form the cars we drive today; with wheel-mounted motors there is no need to accommodate an internal combustion engine or transmission within the car. Interiors will be roomier as a result leaving more room for seating and the latest technology. Touch screen technology may soon seem old hat – the most recent car interiors experiment with controls that sense when your fingers move close to them.

The environmental impact of electric car batteries

Car Batteries: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

Despite great improvements in battery performance, the technology is expensive and there remains uncertainty over exactly how best to exploit it for use in electric cars whilst minimizing the environmental impact of production and disposal.

Reduce: Improving efficiency

Many of today’s electric cars are based on an internal combustion engine car design or configuration, which is rarely the most efficient solution when weight is a critical factor. It seems likely that electric cars will evolve into vehicles designed like the futuristic-looking Aptera, which features hub-mounted motors and lightweight construction.

The forthcoming Nissan Leaf and Vauxhall Ampera are to be fitted with batteries expected to last for 10 years and 150,000 miles. Electronic controls will protect the power cells by preventing them from being over charged or fully discharged.

Re-use: Recycled electric car batteries to store power from wind turbines

In order to reduce the upfront costs of electric cars, manufacturers are looking at ways of re-using batteries when they end their service life in the car.

Nissan and General Motors are working on plans to sell used hundreds of thousands of batteries from their electric vehicles of the future to wind-farm operators,solar generators and as a standby power supply for homes and industrial premises. Energy Storage Systems (ESS) are made possible because lithium-ion cells can retain up to 80 per cent of their capacity after being decommissioned as car batteries. The batteries could store power generated by wind turbines at off-peak times.

It is expected that a battery recycling plant will be will be built in the North East Low Carbon Economic Area around Sunderland where Nissan will produce the Leaf.

Recycling: Lithium battery recycling

Lithium carbonate comes from dried salt lakes in South America and China. Lithium may in the future be extracted from salt water on a commercial scale.

Lithium batteries contain no heavy metals like the lead in lead-acid batteries or cadmium in NiCd batteries.

Following use in Energy Storage Systems, when the batteries are eventually recycled, the batteries can be broken up and separate elements re-used.

Lead battery recycling

In many highly-developed countries like America, Britain, Australia, and Japan, environmental laws are so strict that lead recycling is prohibitively expensive. Am investigation by Greenpeace found that in countries like Indonesia, the Phillipines, Thailand, and Brazil, companies can afford to outbid the competition in more-developed nations for battery recycling jobs.
For example, in America, workers in the lead recycling industry are required by law to use full-body protective gear, but in the Philippines Greenpeace found factory workers dismantling batteries with their bare hands.

The UN's response: The Basel Convention

In the late 1980s, a tightening of environmental regulations in industrialised countries led to a dramatic rise in the cost of hazardous waste disposal. Searching for cheaper ways to get rid of the wastes, “toxic traders” began shipping hazardous waste to developing countries and to Eastern Europe. When this activity was revealed, international outrage led to the drafting and adoption of the Basel Convention, of which there are currently 173 signatories.