The downside of EVs

Troy Bowker writes:

I believe that when these supply chain issues are fully understood by the public, and misinformation about how clean and green EVs are is replaced with facts, Genter’s “feebate” scheme will be seen for what is – Labour and the Greens jumping on the EV bandwagon without properly considering the full impact, either upstream or downstream.

What are these impacts?

To allow EVs to drive up to 500km on a single charge, these batteries are made out of lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel mined in the world’s poorest countries.

So the Greens want mining in NZ basically banned, but are all for poor countries mining at very low rates of pay.

The average EV battery weighs over 500kg or half a tonne, is heavy in lithium and lasts a maximum of eight years. If Genter wants all New Zealand’s 4 million vehicles to be EVs, she will first need to outline the plan to dispose of these millions of toxic used batteries. …

Huge areas of land would need to be converted to graveyards for toxic lithium batteries. Suddenly, the clean, green future with EVs that Genter advocates looks extremely dirty and hazardous to human and animal life.
There is no information on how we are to stop these toxic chemicals seeping through the ground into our waterways. That’s despite the fact that even tiny amounts can induce extreme nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, blurred vision and dizziness in animals and humans.

That’s 250,000 tonnes of batteries a year to be buried.

Bolivia, for example, is the world’s largest supplier of lithium but has one of the world’s worst records for child labour, with children legally commencing full-time mining at the age 10.

EVs based on child labour?

In a followup article Bowker notes:

The mining of lithium and cobalt is like a modern-day gold rush.
In years to come the price of these materials will sky rocket.
Any attempt to put a price on the inevitable replacement of the millions of EV batteries is completely futile. Consumers will be facing massive costs when they upgrade or replace their EV batteries.
To make matters worse, if we move to ethically sourced cobalt and lithium, as we most certainly should, the price of EV batteries will be astronomical.

This is highly likely. If most cars are EVs, then the demand for litium and cobalt will send prices skyhigh. And these are not small iPhone batteries but 500 kg batteries.

Genter would have us believe that most people will choose to hoist their 500kg battery out of their EV and “re-purpose” it to be used to power “stationary devices ” such as fridges and solar panels.
The claim by Genter that the vast majority of EV batteries won’t be disposed of at this point is laughable.

Yeah power your fridge with a 500 kg battery!