New cars also use copper, gold, graphite, lithium, nickel, manganese, quartz, silver, tin-- and much more. Ores need smelting and refining. Tires need rubber.
EV batteries use lithium. Ooof. Do you know about the lithium mining at Thacker Pass, Nevada? Have you heard about the even larger lithium deposit headed for mining at the Oregon-Nevada border?
Because of its lithium-ion battery, an EV can weigh one or two thousand pounds (454 - 907 kilograms) more than a gas-powered car.
Because of this extra weight from the battery, EV tires typically wear out after 13,000 miles-- when gas-powered vehicles' tires typically last 40,000 miles.
That means a lot more rubber, and a lot more tires sent to dumpsites.
Transporting raw materials to refineries and assembly plants-- and the final EV to consumers-- requires intercontinental infrastructure: ships powered by ocean-polluting bunker fuel, trucks, roads made of cement and tar, trains, railroads, airplanes, airports. Imagine what goes into manufacturing each of these great vehicles.
Charging
Charging an EV uses enormous energy and overheats nearby transformers. Charging an EV shortens the nearby transformer's lifespan (typically 30-40 years) to three years. To prevent overheating and explosions, should professional engineers coordinate EV-owners' charging times within a neighborhood? Should utilities budget for replacing distribution transformers? They're not cheap.
Of course, powering the chargers brings up other issues. Most chargers will get their power from natural gas. If solar PVs or industrial wind facilities power chargers, that hardware will need manufacturing; it'll need backup from batteries or natural gas or nuclear power or coal.
Electromagnetic Radiation
A decade ago, I reported that in a hybrid vehicle, a woman with Parkinson's discovered that her deep brain stimulator shut off every time she braked her car. Whenever the car stopped, its computers signaled the battery to recharge-- and emitted magnetic fields that interfered with her medical implant. Yikes.
Given that since 2001, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer has considered magnetic fields "possibly carcinogenic," shouldn't manufacturers design vehicles that minimize passengers' exposure to electromagnetic radiation? People spend considerable time in cars; and health risks increase with the duration of exposure. For manufacturing design guidelines, see Dr. Joel Moskowitz post, Hybrid & Electric Cars: Electromagnetic Radiation Risks.
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