Save the world with disposable EV’s?
After children in the Congo have dug out the cobalt for the blessed batteries we’d hope the cars would be sustained as long as possible. Alas, apparently there is just one more design flaw on top of the low mileage, delays, expense, spontaneous fires, and the need for a whole new grid.
After a minor accident, no one quite knows how to assess the safety of the battery, so it’s easier to throw it away. That means more waste in the landfill and higher insurance premiums to cover the cost of writing off near new cars. Where are the Greens? If child slaves and emissions matter, isn’t it better to reduce consumption by saving your old car from landfill, especially if your new one might end up there as well? Reduce, reuse, recycle…
Meanwhile the UN is demanding Net Zero targets, which are not even theoretically possible, be achieved ten years sooner. Half the technologies we need are not even invented yet. Infinity-minus-ten is a number that won’t get you to work, but it powers whole careers at the UN.
h/t David and Notalotofpeopleknowthat
Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have to junk the whole car
By Nick Carey, Paul Lienert and Sarah Mcfarlane, Reuters
LONDON/DETROIT, March 20- For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles – leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.
And now those battery packs are piling up in scrapyards in some countries, a previously unreported and expensive gap in what was supposed to be a “circular economy.”
“We’re buying electric cars for sustainability reasons,” said Matthew Avery, research director at automotive risk intelligence company Thatcham Research. “But an EV isn’t very sustainable if you’ve got to throw the battery away after a minor collision.”
Amazing what uncertainty can do to the value of a good car:
Allianz [an insurer] has seen scratched battery packs where the cells inside are likely undamaged, but without diagnostic data it has to write off those vehicles. …
It already costs more to insure most EVs than traditional cars. According to online brokerage Policygenius, the average U.S. monthly EV insurance payment in 2023 is $206, 27% more than for a combustion-engine model.
The Reuters team found many low mileage EV’s at salvage yards in Europe:
At Synetiq, the UK’s largest salvage company, head of operations Michael Hill said over the last 12 months the number of EVs in the isolation bay – where they must be checked to avoid fire risk – at the firm’s Doncaster yard has soared, from perhaps a dozen every three days to up to 20 per day.
“We’ve seen a really big shift and it’s across all manufacturers,” Hill said.
The UK currently has no EV battery recycling facilities, so Synetiq has to remove the batteries from written-off cars and store them in containers. Hill estimated at least 95% of the cells in the hundreds of EV battery packs – and thousands of hybrid battery packs – Synetiq has stored at Doncaster are undamaged and should be reused.
It’s just another bump on the road to Renewable World that shows that no one really cares how “clean-n-green” anything is. Your emission of CO2 are irrelevant, it’s only the power, control and profits that matter.
Photo: Shuets Udono
