Road transport contributed around 20% of global CO2 emissions in 2020, and there has not been a marked improvement. Some 75% of this pollution comes from vehicles traveling on roads. Clearly, we must electrify transport as the best-known alternative available. But there are a number of electric vehicle battery issues that are holding us back.
Is Driver Mistrust The Core Electric Vehicle Battery Issue?
We know we have to tactfully persuade consumers to use electric road transport in our democratic society. However, we suggest this is a secondary issue driven by several underlying technical electric vehicle battery issues:
- Batteries use key materials such as cobalt, lithium, manganese, and nickel to produce electrical energy. The prices of these are rising because of limited supply and high demand.
- The vast number of battery cells rolling off production lines, almost inevitably means some defects slip through. We need to transition to non-flammable batteries urgently.
- We also need to be careful when trading battery safety and stability against faster charging and greater density. These are four critical issues that are mostly likely slowing transition.
- Developing batteries using alternative materials is expensive, and it is tempting to stay where we are. However, the other issues will remain, until we break free from tradition.
Where To From Here To Resolve Consumer Doubt?
We agree with Mobility Outlook that we need to make a step-change in our long-term view of energy storage. Some of the electric vehicle battery issues we mentioned may be resolved by lateral thinking, for example battery swapping stations.
Using alternative designs like solid-state batteries could also mitigate safety concerns, especially when we link them with novel materials like sodium from oceans, and oxygen from air.
Perhaps though, we consumers are being over-idealistic. We have become accustomed to flammable gasoline catching fire after road accidents, and taking care we don’t run out of petrol on road trips. Why, then, do we expect batteries to be perfect?
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Driving Range For Electric Cars Queried
