News of a million mile battery is clearly very good for the Electric Vehicle market. This addresses one of the major issues with an EV: will it become essentially worthless 5-10 years down the line when battery replacement will be far more than the vehicle is worth? Most vehicles will not do even half a million miles; therefore even with deterioration, the battery will only be half way through its life when the car ends its life. The battery can then find another use out of a car for the rest of its life.
The million mile battery still leaves in place a list of major questions about the eco / ethical footprint of Electric Vehicles. This is not to pretend for a second that internal combustion engines are ethically problem free across a wide spectrum of issues; however we must be aware of the ethical issues involved in EV. If we present EV as ethically pure simply on the emissions at the exhaust pipe – ie zero because it does not have one – we are deluding ourselves. Work will then not be done to clean up issues which do relate to EV.
Obvious issues which must be addressed are the recycling of all the electronics – this of course also relates to modern internal combustion engine cars which are full of digital tech; another is the manufacture and final disposal of the batteries.
Currently many batteries are made in China by Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd (CATL), which supplies Tesla and Volkswagen AG. This raises a whole raft of issues before we have even looked at what they are made from.
Wherever they are made, Li-ion battery elements include iron, copper, nickel and cobalt. These metals can be recycled; however mining generally remains cheaper financially than recycling. A major reason for this is the very exploitative forms of labour used in the mining of the raw materials. The most expensive metal involved in the construction of Li-ion batteries is cobalt. Much of this is mined in Congo and falls into the category of ‘conflict minerals’. This means the mining of them is inextricably linked to funding of brutal militias involved in local conflicts.
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