Typically for electric vehicles, their USP is the reduction in harmful emissions which contribute to climate change. They are often marketed as a greener and more sustainable way to drive. However, perhaps due to the desperation from governments to adhere to their pledge to ramp up EV sales, we rarely hear of the risks associated with manufacturing EVs, namely, the lithium-ion batteries, which have been described by The Guardian as a ‘potential environment timebomb.’
For starters, these batteries are not squeaky-clean to produce. Raw materials – such as lithium, nickel and cobalt – need to be mined, which has an environmental impact and sometimes encroaches on human rights. What’s more, there doesn’t appear to be a clear-cut plan for when the batteries retire. 12m tons worth of lithium-ion batteries are expected to retire by 2030, and hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested into recycling start-ups and research centres to find ways in which the batteries can be disassembled, with the valuable materials recycled. You’d think, perhaps, these kinds of plans and contingencies would have been ironed out before production, but several companies are running trials.
It is currently unclear how much of the batteries we will re-use, but what is clear is that we will be seeing a lot more EVs on Newbury’s roads for 2030. And with more EVs, which have automatic transmissions by default, it’s logical to assume that there will be a greater demand for automatic driving lessons.