How can the world sustain everyone driving an EV? Here is what I discovered about these batteries.

For months now, I have been drowning in my search to find an electric vehicle (EV). Weighing options. Living with car shortages. The batteries on these are huge. I got consumed with the question: How can the world sustain everyone driving an EV? Here is what I discovered about these batteries.

There is a race to expand EV production that seems to have picked up speed in recent years. The key to the ability to ramp up production and standardize EVs is, of course, the battery. EV batteries are rechargeable batteries, most commonly lithium-ion or lithium-polymer batteries, that rely on sourcing raw materials that are expensive, energy–intensive, and environmentally damaging to produce.

Yet these high-capacity batteries are also touted as essential to fueling the transportation sector with clean energy. Given the damage to the environment and the number of preventable deaths resulting from excess pollution caused by cars and trucks — about 20,000 Americans a year, largely in low–income communities situated near highways and busy streets — cleaning and decarbonizing the transit sector is no small thing.

10/17-19 EAC