Electric Vehicles and Increased Air Pollution

Kevin Williamson, the libertarian writer for the National Review wrote an excellent piece about the release of the Ford F150 Lightning, Ford’s new all-electric truck. In his piece, Williamson unleashed some interesting facts about EV vehicles and their cause in increasing air pollution.

I wanted to share some of his piece below and encouraging you to read his full column here:

It is heavy, as EVs tend to be, because those batteries weigh a ton — a nonmetaphorical, literal ton in the case of the Ford truck, which comes with a basic battery pack that weighs in at 1,800 pounds and offers an extended-range battery that is even heavier.

Never mind that getting run over by a regular truck is not exactly breakfast in bed; Grabar is correct that weight does matter a great deal from an environmental point of view, because — and here is something worth knowing that our greenie-weenie friends rarely mention — most of the air pollution associated with cars and trucks does not come from burning gasoline or diesel.

pollution — the stuff that makes the air around you unpleasant or un­healthy to breathe — is a largely localized phenomenon, and it mostly is caused by friction: tires on pavement throwing up clouds of toxic dust, brakes throwing off particles of pads (once made of asbestos), that sort of thing. Heavier cars put more stress on their tires and on the blacktop, and slowing them down takes more force from the brakes. If every gasoline-powered car and diesel-powered truck in the world were replaced by an electric alternative tomorrow, then greenhouse-gas emissions would, in theory and barring any other changes, decline by something like 8 percent. (According to the World Resources Institute, transportation as a whole is responsible for about 11 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions, and cars and trucks account for about three-fourths of that 11 percent, the rest being airplanes, ships, etc.) That would be a real improvement from a climate-change point of view, but local air pollution would get worse — possibly much worse — especially near highways.

The threat of heavier EV vehicles increasing the levels of air pollution is something I have never heard of. Let alone the fact that heavier EV vehicles will increase the cost of road maintenance in local budgets.

Most importantly, the increased weight of these vehicles could very likely increase the number of fatalities on America’s roads should be the most concerning of all.

Let’s also not forget why these vehicles are heavier. They are heavier because of the rare metals found in the batteries of these vehicles. In addition, if we are to increase the amount of these metals necessary for renewable energy, the world would have to see an unprecedented increase in mining activity.

You know mining, that very green activity that climate activists love to support.