Progress and Setbacks on the EV Front – Part 1: Consumer Concerns

This year the love affair with the electric vehicle (EV) has faced a few roadblocks to add to the ones we are more familiar with like sticker shock, range anxiety and a scarcity of public quick-charge stations.

The fear of running out of juice before reaching a charging station is a valid concern. So is the cost on the showroom floor. But over a lifetime of ownership EVs compare favourably to the most economical gas and diesel-powered vehicle models. And sticker prices are coming down. Tesla has introduced discounts on existing models and promised lower-priced ones soon. More companies are getting into the EV business, and Chinese manufacturers are starting to stick it to Tesla, the front-runner to date.

The EV Environmentally Friendly Issue

The latest public anxieties about EVs include discussions about their environmentally friendliness when compared to fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. Aren’t the battery materials an environmental hazard? Doesn’t the mining of lithium, the metal most commonly used in today’s EV batteries, produce toxic chemicals and runoff? When batteries die do they not contribute to pollution? Will keeping EVs powered up not put unnecessary strain on the electrical grid? Are batteries safer than gasoline and diesel-powered cars? What about those videos of Tesla EVs bursting into flames?

In terms of environmental friendliness, EVs have gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles beat by a long shot. Lithium is the metal of choice for EV battery packs at present. It is mined and handled responsibly today. Battery disposal is becoming a non-issue as new factories are built to recycle lithium and other battery components.

In Canada, two companies, Li-Cycle and Nemaska Lithium have established partnerships with EV companies to recycle and recover lithium, cobalt, and nickel, keeping these metals and minerals out of landfills.

Compare that to the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) contributed by fossil-fuel-powered transportation. In Canada, as an example, the latter accounts for approximately 25% of the country’s GHGs. Numbers elsewhere are certainly similar to the Canadian experience.

The EV Fire Risk Issue

We can watch EVs going up in flames on social media. I’m happy that we don’t get to see similar video clips of fossil-fuel-powered cars and trucks in flames whether on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram or other social media sites. Why? Gasoline and diesel are inflammable ingredients, so much so that U.S. data sources track fire incidents caused by fossil fuel-powered vehicles. Compared to EVs they are far more prone to going up in smoke. Statistics kept by the U.S. National Fire Protection Association, in 2020, noted that 15% of fires that year across the country originated in gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles and represented the cause of 18% in total civilian deaths and 11% in injuries. Comparatively, EV fires amounted to 0.02% of the total that year.

The risk of fire in EVs comes from the liquid electrolyte in the batteries. Electrolytes are inflammable if improperly maintained, if there is a manufacturing defect, or if the batteries are improperly charged. The low number in 2020 is partially attributable to the difference in the number of EVs on the road that year. But, industry experts argue that EV liquid electrolytes represent a far lower fire risk than the liquids used to power gasoline and diesel vehicles which in an accident can suffer fuel leaks, or can burst into flames when an engine overheats, or if the wiring systems short circuit.

The EV Grid Jeopardy Issue

Is growing EV adoption a real concern for the utilities and operators of the power grid? Electrification of industry, housing and transportation as the world decarbonizes energy sources is driving significant grid capacity growth. The International Energy Agency (IEA) tracks, the rate of growth in grid capacity globally is expected to reach 18,800 GigaWatt/Hours (GwH) by 2030, up from 13,300 GwH in 2020, and by 2040 hit 24,600 GwH, and by 2050, 31,600 GwH. Most of that growth will come from renewable and nuclear power generation. Distributed power generation from off-the-grid solar panel rooftops isn’t included in the estimates. Many home chargers will benefit from distributed power generation sources.

The EV Range Anxiety Issue

Currently, the top-performing range for EVs is approximately 700 kilometres (over 430 miles) on a single charge. But many early and lower-priced models have distance ratings around 400 kilometres (around 250 miles). All of these EV models feature Lithium-ion (Li-ion) liquid battery packs.

Li-ion isn’t the only battery being used by EV manufacturers. BYD, the Chinese EV manufacturer that surpassed Tesla in sales in the last month offers cars running on Li-ion and Sodium-ion (Na-ion). One of its vehicle models, the Seagull uses a Na-ion battery and offers a driving range of 300 kilometres (approximately 180 miles) per charge.

The Seagull isn’t an answer to the range anxiety issue. It is meant to be an urban commute vehicle and is priced well below Tesla’s models. Na-ion battery advantages include lower material costs, faster recharge rates, longer battery lifecycles, and better performance in extreme heat and cold.

Americans, Canadians and those who live in rural areas where 700 clicks are still seen as a low number are looking for batteries that can power a vehicle to go 1,000 kilometres (610 miles) or more between charges. Experiments replacing lithium or sodium with aluminum, iron, potassium, nickel, and mixes of these metals are ongoing.

Solid-state batteries with no liquid electrolyte have recently moved from the world’s universities and manufacturers’ laboratories to the largest automobile manufacturers on the planet. Toyota recently announced plans to introduce models meeting the 1,000-kilometre milestone as early as 2026, and an entire fleet of solid-state battery-powered cars by 2027 and 2028.

Solid-state batteries have many advantages over their liquid cousins. They are lighter in weight, exhibit faster recharge rates, and don’t need the liquid electrolytes that are a potential fire risk (see earlier discussion).

These new generations of batteries will extend EV ranges to 1,100 kilometres (almost 700 miles) and I will talk more about them in Part 2 of this series.

The EV Battery Performance Issue

For the liquid Li-ion battery, however, there is some good news. Stanford researchers recently noted that by draining an EV battery pack and letting it rest for an hour before plugging it in, EV owners will get incredible improvements in battery lifecycle performance and range. In a Stanford News release, Wenbo Zhang, a material sciences Ph.D. candidate at Stanford is quoted stating:

“We discovered that by resting the battery in the discharged state, lost capacity can be recovered and cycle life increased. These improvements can be realized just by reprogramming the battery management software, with no additional cost or changes needed for equipment, materials, or production flow.”

The discharge and rest for just an hour allows a battery to recover what is referred to as its “dead lithium.” This is lithium that becomes isolated by being trapped in a solid electrolyte interface (SEI) which forms a spongy matrix between the electrolyte and the anode. The rest phase with no current in the battery dissolves the SEI and brings back to life the isolated and dead lithium so that it can retain a charge. This was always considered irreversible in Li-ion batteries.

This discovery implies that almost all existing EV batteries can see extended lifecycles and range through a simple software fix uploaded to the onboard battery management system. Considering that the average driver probably uses a car for an hour a day, resting the car battery for an hour rather than plugging it into a recharger seems like a no-brainer and should dramatically improve performance for those who still suffer from EV range anxiety.