Discussion – filling-out the points made above
Advantages of EVs
Disadvantages of EVs
- Environmentally friendly (1) – no greenhouse carbon dioxide. emissions.
Renewable energy can be used to recharge the battery, either from your own rooftop solar power or you can buy 'green electricity'.
- Environmentally friendly (2) – no petrochemical emissions, no NOx emissions.
The burning of fossil fuels in ICE engines, both petrol and diesel, releases partly burned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, both of which are pollutants.
- Environmentally friendly (3) – no oily carbon emissions, no SO2 emissions.
The burning of diesel, and the burning of oil in poorly maintained ICE engines release oily carbon particles, which are particularly damaging to health, into the atmosphere. The burning of poor quality diesel releases sulphur-dioxide, an important environmental pollutant into the atmosphere.
- Environmentally friendly (4) – an EV is quiet.
Internal combustion engines, particularly diesel engines, can be noisy. Electric motors are almost silent.
- Low running cost if you have your own solar power.
If, like us, you sell solar power to your energy retailer, you will probably be paid no more than $0.12/kWh (while you will probably pay at least twice that for the power that you buy).
- Very few moving parts – greatly reduced maintenance costs.
The electric motor in an EV has one moving part compared to the hundreds of moving parts in an ICE, and there is no gearbox, transmission or differential.
- Potential to use the battery to reduce your household electricity costs or get income by selling power into the grid in periods of high demand.
At least one EV newly on the market (the Nissan Leaf) can be used to feed electricity into a home battery. Combined with a roof-top solar PV system and a small (and low-priced) home battery this could give you more independence from expensive grid power than would a large (and expensive) home battery.
Wikipedia states that vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology could be worth $4000 per year per car to the utilities; if a substantial proportion of the savings could go to the vehicle owner it would have a big impact of the economics of owning an EV.
- Government incentives.
A number of states and nations offer financial incentives to EV owners.
- At the time of writing EV batteries were not easily recyclable, rarely fully recycled and not often recycled at all.
It is cheaper to obtain the lithium and cobalt required for lithium-based batteries by mining them than by recycling them; this seems unlikely to change in the near future, but may in the more distant future.
- High initial cost.
As discussed below, the cost of EV will decline as production rates increase.
- Limited range.
The range has increased and will continue to increase.
- Much slower to recharge than the refuelling time of an ICE car.
Fast recharging options will increase with time. Charging times at home will probably remain substantial, but is this important?
- Limited fast-charging sites.
These are increasing.
- The grid electricity available for recharging EVs is largely generated unsustainably.
National power grids will gradually be decarbonised.
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