Even if they require rare metals for their batteries, electric vehicles consume much less raw materials than fossil-fuel vehicles, according to a study published, on Monday 1 March by the NGO Transport&Environment (T&E).
Taking into account the recycling of the battery’s materials, an “average” electric vehicle battery would only consume 30 kg of raw materials during its lifetime (this is the amount lost, or not recovered), which is about the size of a football, T&E estimates.
However, according to the study, an “average” fossil-fuel car burns around 17, 000 litres of petrol or about 13,500 litres of diesel, which would form a tower 70 to 90 m high if these barrels of oil were stacked end to end.
The NGO also expects this gap to widen as technological advances reduce the amount of metals needed to produce batteries.
According to it, this progress will halve the amount of lithium required to make a battery over the next decade. The amount of cobalt required will decrease by more than three-quarters, and that of nickel by about one fifth.
See the study: https://bit.ly/2Og6DkI (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)