It’s the Montreal Auto Show this week. This automotive high mass reflects the industry, but not the market, this year. Because horsepower gives way to kilowatt hours more quickly among buyers than sellers, which sometimes creates absurd conversations that this little guide wants to help correct.
After walking and taking the bus, electric cars are another way to reduce your carbon footprint, more and more studies show. It is also unfortunately safer than the frosty sidewalks of the city center…
Let’s start with two very fresh events. In mid-January, Tesla terminals near Chicago suffered a breakdown, particularly due to exceptional cold for the region. The same week, gas pumps stopped working in Calgary due to a cold snap. Vehicles broke down in both cases because they could not refuel.
Is one motor technology better than the other?
In the same vein, much is made of electric vehicles catching fire. In Sweden, an agency of the Ministry of Defense therefore took the count. In 2022, it counted 3.8 cases of fires per 100,000 electric vehicles on the road. The same year, it counted 68 cases of fires per 100,000 gasoline vehicles.
We won’t kill the headlines for that…
Cold
In cold weather, all vehicles have a reduced range. Organizations in the United States have been looking into this issue for several years and the consensus is that the average loss of range of electric vehicles in winter is 12 to 30%. It can reach 41% in very cold weather if all heating accessories are activated at maximum.
An electric car like the Chevrolet Bolt will be able to travel in the worst case 225 km on a full charge when it is -10 degrees Celsius outside.
The cold also affects gasoline vehicles. Below -6 degrees Celsius, a gasoline engine loses 15 to 24% of its autonomy, calculates the US Department of Energy. A car which would normally travel 400 km per tank will do between 300 and 340 with a full tank which it will empty completely.
Money
The cost of this fill-up is probably more than $50. In the worst case, the cost of an electric recharge will reach around ten dollars at an Electric Circuit fast charging station.
That said, electric cars are expensive. It seems that manufacturers are rushing to market their most luxurious models. This gives the impression that you will have to drive them for seven years, or travel 100,000 kilometers, before you “break even your money”, and that its operating cost is lower than that of a gasoline vehicle.
Based in the United Kingdom, the Climate Change Committee compared the average annual cost of light vehicles in major markets around the world. On a daily basis, electric is at least 60% more affordable. The economy is higher where electricity costs less, such as in Quebec. The extra premium paid on purchase compared to a comparable vehicle is amortized before the end of a long-term lease of four years, often less.
Carbon debt
We hear about the polluting emissions of electric vehicles that the energy required to build them is so great that it takes forever to repay their “carbon debt”.
Not that much. The International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT) calculated in 2021 that an electric vehicle is “cleaner” than a comparable gasoline vehicle after 18,000 kilometers. It takes less time where electricity is renewable.
Over a life cycle of around seven years, an electric vehicle generates in the worst case 50 to 66% fewer polluting emissions than a similar gasoline vehicle. Even powered by coal-fired power plants, electric vehicles are less polluting, studies conclude.
Rare metals
Finally, the famous rare metals, including cobalt. The global mining sector needs supervision: Amnesty International is doing everything to prohibit the presence of children in cobalt mines. It’s quite a scourge. To help, the least we can do is reduce our need for cobalt and recycle that in circulation.
Daniel Breton, former Quebec Minister of the Environment and president of Electric Mobility Canada, reacted in early January to a viral and misleading publication on cobalt shared on social networks during the holidays.
Cobalt is used in some batteries. That said, newer electric cars have batteries that have exactly zero cobalt, writes Daniel Breton.
Along with rhodium – a rare and very precious metal – cobalt is also found in exhaust catalysts… of gasoline vehicles. It is also essential for refineries that produce gasoline and diesel. Phones and computers contain cobalt.
Up to 98% of the contents of electric vehicle batteries can be recycled. At least one Quebec company, Lithion Technologies, plans to do this in the suburbs of Montreal.
The gasoline consumed by a gasoline car is… 0% recyclable.