Are electric cars more sustainable than conventional cars?

Electric cars also popularly known as EV’s which run on electricity. As opposed to conventional vehicles that use gasoline or petroleum, electric cars use an electric motor powered by batteries. Electric cars are slowly growing in popularity and almost one out of every 200 cars are now electric. Popular electric car providers Tesla, Volkswagen, BMW and Chevrolet see this as a growing trend and investing in the future technology of electric cars. In the last one year, electric car sales have topped 2.1 million globally. In India, electric cars cost around 10-15 lakhs and 3700 units were sold in 2019. Electric cars have half the impact on the climate compared to the average car today over its lifetime. Pros: Electricity is now becoming greener. In the UK and other developing countries the carbon footprint of electricity is falling fast. Electricity is being produced from renewable sources like wind, water, etc. If the electricity grid is getting greener changing to electric cars will make even larger of an impact The first combustion engine was made in 1861. After 161 years of refinements even the most efficient petrol engines use only 12-30 percent of the energy from the fuel for the wheels and other useful functions. On the other hand electric motors are 77% more efficient. Electric cars get twice as many miles than average cars out of the same amount of energy. Cons: However, electric cars are not entirely perfect. There are hurdles and challenges with the materials used to make the electric car batteries. The demand of the alkali metal lithium is growing rapidly. Chile has the world’s largest lithium reserves. The increasing use of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars has contributed to a 58% increase in lithium mining in the last 10 years. The mining process requires extensive amounts of water, which can cause water depletion. In some areas, the locals complain about droughts and threats of vegetation dying out. Electric cars have a lot of scope for improvement. They are certainly more sustainable than conventional vehicles and must not be tossed aside as a far-fetched idea. Like Thomas Alva Edison said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” His perseverance has given us today the bulb. We must continue with the idea of electric cars and make them more sustainable and eco-friendly.


Written by Lucius De Almeida. Feel free to comment your opinion!

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