Canada’s most populous provinces are falling behind many U.S. states when it comes to building fast charging stations for electric vehicles, a CBC News analysis shows, raising questions about whether this country’s infrastructure is ready for a transition to cleaner energy.

  •  girlfreddy   ( @girlfreddy@mastodon.social ) 
    9•11 months ago

    @Stochastic @danielquinn

    EVs are an environmental disaster because:

    one, even a minor accident makes the vehicle unrepairable, because the battery packs can’t be tested to verify if they’ve been damaged

    and

    two, battery packs are worth up to 50% of an EVs’ price, so replacing them is cost-prohibitive, so EVs are written off after 8-10 yrs (because the batteries are old tech at that point and can cost upwards of $15k to replace).

    https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/scratched-ev-battery-your-insurer-may-have-junk-whole-car-2023-03-20/

    https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/hybrids-evs/what-happens-to-the-old-batteries-in-electric-cars-a1091429417/

    •  TemporaryBoyfriend   ( @TemporaryBoyfriend@lemmy.ca ) 
      4•11 months ago

      A buddy of mine is working with provincial electricity authorities to create a ‘second use lifeline’ for car batteries. Even if a battery pack only has 70% of its capacity left, it can be stacked in a steel box with a dozen others, and used to balance demand on the grid - absorbing excess capacity minute-to-minute, and putting it back on the grid when demand is highest. They would continue to use the pack until it was down to about 45-50% of its capacity, then send it off for recycling. The only reason it hasn’t been rolled out anywhere is that the competition for used car batteries is fierce.

    •  Auzy   ( @Auzy@beehaw.org ) 
      3•11 months ago

      Why is it people always skip the second part of the article?

      “Electric car batteries aren’t very difficult to get rid of because even if they’ve outlasted the usefulness for an electric car, they’re still worth quite a lot to someone,” says Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports’ senior director of auto testing.

      The one thing advocates against EV’s conveniently ignore, is that batteries are unlikely to go straight to landfill.

      The other thing is that batteries are rapidly evolving and even companies like CATL apparently have a battery which has greatly improved energy density… As time progresses, Electric cars will require fewer batteries In fact, technologies like Lithium Air batteries (under development), offer 5x greater density, and other technologies like Solid State Sulfide are also in development.

      There’s so much work happening here. And it’s already proven on average that they’re already more environmentally friendly (and will soon be substantially more so).