Are Electric Vehicles the Way to a Greener Future?

Vehicles release a lot of greenhouse gases that significantly contribute to climate change. For this reason, more national governments and car manufacturers are embracing electric vehicles because of the perceived benefits that they have for the environment.

Electric vehicles run on rechargeable batteries that come from mined raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Electric vehicles are considered better than hybrid and conventional vehicles. Many people believe that transitioning to electric vehicles should be a major strategy in fighting climate change. However, this belief is still highly debated even by experts.

Supporters of electric vehicles say that thanks to not having an exhaust system, electric vehicles leave zero carbon footprints. This allows electric vehicles to help prevent climate change and reduce air pollution.

Also, the production side of electric car batteries may still release significant amounts of carbon footprint. However, it is still clear that electric vehicles are the way to go because as far as the goal of reducing carbon emissions, they still do a better job overall.

Finally, many large companies are now turning to the use of renewable energy sources and trying to lessen the environmental impacts of mining raw materials as they produce supplies for electric vehicle batteries. This makes electric cars more environment-friendly in all aspects starting from their production to their actual use on the road.

Opponents of electric vehicles say that electric cars are not exactly environment-friendly. As the world transitions to electric vehicles, mining sectors get pressured to meet the demand for raw materials, pushing them to work harder. This leads to scarcer raw materials and an increase in the environmental impacts of mining such as erosion, formation of sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, and contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface water by chemicals used in the mining process.

Moreover, electric cars may have lesser carbon emissions, but the process of producing them generates more carbon emissions than the production of conventional vehicles does. Also, the power sources that supply the energy of electric vehicle batteries are usually not carbon emission-free. This means that electric vehicles are only as eco-friendly as the source of their power supply.

Finally, the method of disposal of electric vehicle batteries is also a major problem that needs to be carefully considered. Transitioning to electric vehicles means more batteries to be disposed which means more toxic chemicals are released, posing damage to humans and the environment.