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Electric cars are going to be an ecological disaster in hindsight. Hundreds of kilos of lithium per car ending up in the water table per improperly processed e

Electric cars are going to be an ecological disaster in hindsight. Hundreds of kilos of lithium per car ending up in the water table per improperly processed end of life vehicle. Periodic burning down of entire boats transporting them across the oceans. Occasional burning down of houses with integrated garages. They've been a really effective way to persuade a lot of people to get rid of the car they already have, the environmental cost of constructing it already spent, and get a new one instead with a whole new cost. Just after we've got the old school petrol systems running reasonably cleanly too. That's nowhere near the current consensus. I think it'll be really obvious in about a decade.

throw0101b 3y ago
> Electric cars are going to be an ecological disaster in hindsight. As opposed to the not-ecological disaster of ICE cars? The perfect is the enemy of the good: as long as we're stuck with cars (at least in short- or medium-term), let's perhaps consider the less sucky option.
- AstralStorm 3y ago
  The perfect would be investing in a high end rail network, city rail and then light and medium EV. You're not really stuck with cars in any term. Both redesigning cities and building transport is a multi year programme. The HEV will prevent the perfect solution, in the opposite of the parable.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > Both redesigning cities and building transport is a multi year programme. So for the existing housing stock, we'll just evict people from the low-density ex/suburbs, bulldoze entire neighbourhoods, and rebuild them at higher density? I'm all for building new in a better way, but there's a lot of legacy out there.
PaulKeeble 3y ago
Its not happening that way at all. These batteries aren't just going to landfill they are going into a bunch of places. 1. The old batteries are ripped apart into their individual 18650 batteries, tested and then repurposed into lower capacity/charge/discharge powerwalls and other uses. 2. There is a commercial company buying the second hand batteries and racking them for grid storage. 3. The lithium is being recycled for the batteries that have lost too much or shorted because its commercially viable to do so. Batteries are immensely valuable now and getting more so as is the material and there is a economic value in their reuse and recycling and that is happening at enormous scale.
- AstralStorm 3y ago
  The ecological disaster was always going to be the cathode, not lithium. That thing is mixed with some advanced polymers and the metal (be that manganese or cobalt) is hard to extract from this. The process to recycle them is going to be extremely dirty and solvent laden. And you do have to mine the cathode materials...

throw0101b 3y ago

> Electric cars are going to be an ecological disaster in hindsight. As opposed to the not-ecological disaster of ICE cars? The perfect is the enemy of the good: as long as we're stuck with cars (at least in short- or medium-term), let's perhaps consider the less sucky option.

AstralStorm 3y ago
The perfect would be investing in a high end rail network, city rail and then light and medium EV. You're not really stuck with cars in any term. Both redesigning cities and building transport is a multi year programme. The HEV will prevent the perfect solution, in the opposite of the parable.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > Both redesigning cities and building transport is a multi year programme. So for the existing housing stock, we'll just evict people from the low-density ex/suburbs, bulldoze entire neighbourhoods, and rebuild them at higher density? I'm all for building new in a better way, but there's a lot of legacy out there.

PaulKeeble 3y ago

Its not happening that way at all. These batteries aren't just going to landfill they are going into a bunch of places. 1. The old batteries are ripped apart into their individual 18650 batteries, tested and then repurposed into lower capacity/charge/discharge powerwalls and other uses. 2. There is a commercial company buying the second hand batteries and racking them for grid storage. 3. The lithium is being recycled for the batteries that have lost too much or shorted because its commercially viable to do so. Batteries are immensely valuable now and getting more so as is the material and there is a economic value in their reuse and recycling and that is happening at enormous scale.

AstralStorm 3y ago
The ecological disaster was always going to be the cathode, not lithium. That thing is mixed with some advanced polymers and the metal (be that manganese or cobalt) is hard to extract from this. The process to recycle them is going to be extremely dirty and solvent laden. And you do have to mine the cathode materials...