Electric vehicle charging cost

pianotuna wrote:
kerrlakeRoo,

nickel-metal hydride is a heck of a lot different from LI.

kerrlakeRoo wrote:
They use metals, a lot more rare earth metals I'm sure, and the chemicals involved in production of the batteries are so caustic that the Prius battery production had to be moved to India which was much more lax than the previous home.

Wrong, LI battery production USES many metals which are not any better than Nickle-metal Hydride batteries..

In fact, in Tesla's own battery the break down from HEREis as follows excluding the obvious Lithium..

5% Aluminum
15% Cobalt
80% NICKLE

Battery making of any type IS an extremely dirty and unenviromentally friendly process.

To get the materials, pretty much ALL require huge amounts of mining, huge amounts of WATER and huge amounts of ENERGY..

Cobalt has not been mined in the US for 40+ yrs..

Lithium processing is horrible on the environment in its' self since it typically it is processed via open brine pools..

Recycling lithium based batteries is a whole nuther mess, currently, very little of Lithium batteries can be reprocessed and very little Lithium can be extracted and reused in another battery..

I know "Pro-EV" folks like to duck their heads in the sand on this, but you simply cannot ignore the facts that making any batteries is not clean or environmentally friendly..

Another flip side besides the batteries is making those powerful electric motors requires large amounts of copper, large amounts of rare earth metals for the high power permanent magnets.. The only place on this earth that mines and processes materials for high power magnets is China..

Get over it folks, it is not free, not cheap and not environmentally clean by any means.. You have been sold a bill of goods to think other wise.

At least with a ICE engine, it CAN be fully recycled, takes less raw materials to build and many recycled materials ARE used in building new engines..

From a recycling perspective, 99.9% of a ICE vehicle can be fully recycled and reused in new products..

With electric cars, not so much, electronics are not recyclable (motor controls, ect), LI batteries are not recyclable.. That leaves the vehicle frame and body along with some plastic and perhaps wiring and motors..

Then there is another thing, Li batteries which Tesla is making an using MUST be stored, charged and used in a very well temperature controlled environment.. What this means is the battery is used to heat and cool it's self.. If you leave it unplugged from the grid for too long of time it eventually WILL run it's self down and become a huge door stop.. Something like 30 days..

Yeah, you HAVE to feed it from the grid even when not driving it..

So, tell me, how is that "saving the environment"?

At least with a ICE, it can sit for months on end and not have to be plugged in, wasting the power grid capacity.. Imagine what would happen if there where several million EV cars plugged into the grid 24/7/365 all sucking up hundreds of watts of energy..

Yeah, the power companies will love you for that..