We can’t save the world with electric cars

We’ve known for a long time that our GDP addiction and capitalist economic model are incompatible with life on Earth. 

Scientists kept saying that for decades, yet very little happened. A few years ago, the electrification of passenger vehicles had begun its journey, hoping it could reduce CO2 emissions to save the planet. 

Not only does it not help — it worsens the situation, and yet we keep heading towards a disaster.

Hoping for a deus ex machina

There are many examples of the emerging problems that come hand in hand with the electrification of cars. 

While producing an electric car, you still end up emitting greenhouse gases into the air. The resources required to build a sustainable and efficient system for electric transportation are way too costly, especially for smaller countries or emerging countries. There is no clear strategic plan on how to finance or maintain it.

The price of an electric car is extremely expensive compared to its predecessors, the internal combustion engines, and the efficiency is nowhere near them if you look at just how many improvements still need to happen to make an electric car run the same as its non-electric counterpart. 

The recharging process is time-consuming, and the battery replacement is too costly and can happen too early compared to the promised overall lifetime of the electric cars. 

The amount of energy that switching all traffic to electric vehicles requires is unimaginably high and can not be produced without further CO2 emissions unless we bring back the likes of Nikola Tesla and their magical deus ex machina inventions. The question is, who would purchase that?

Infinite growth in a finite system is the root cause of our problems

The issue is no joke, because not only it is inefficient and expensive, but it also empowers those countries that have the necessary base materials and energy to produce the technology electrification requires and weakens the European Union. 

It also strengthens countries like Russia and China, our direct economic competitors. This alone makes it hard to believe the political elites because their actions are contradictory. 

For example, the EU regulations state you need to store and recycle accumulators where you produced them, which is a real hit to the environment. It is nowhere near being environmentally friendly. And all of this is happening to fulfil the prediction of reaching 22% less CO2 by 2050 instead of being completely “carbonless”. 

But what about the other sectors? Nobody knows, or nobody talks about it with equal importance.

We have more serious issues. Most of the greenhouse gases come from aircraft, ships, and heavy traffic vehicles as well as from anti-environmental energy-producing technologies like coal-based thermal power plants. 

Another major problem is the 1.5-million-km2 waste island in our oceans destroying the ecosystem, and completely overshadowing the sealife of our planet which is the basis of life. 

Again, nobody talks about it, and very little happens on merit. The capitalist economic system is also incompatible with life, where GDP must keep growing to infinite in a finite system, which is impossible. 

Nobody has come up with alternative systems that would be mutually beneficial for the cultures across the planet. 

Railways should be prioritised as the solution to the problem of supply chain CO2 emission because a lot of materials are still supplied by ships — the most polluting method, not only for our atmosphere but also for our oceans.

The GDP can’t be eaten

If we really wish to protect the environment and the Western bloc’s and the EU’s economic role in the world, we must understand the real root causes of our problems. 

We must stop making economic decisions based on ideologies or personal desires. We must take steps towards pure logic and strategically compatible decisions that are in our best interest. 

We must take into consideration alternatives that are compatible with our current systems and require less additional production, including options like hydrogen-based engines for passenger vehicles — alternatives for clean electricity production, and alternatives for our current economic systems. 

Going electric does not solve our problems, it only deepens them. As engineers, we must say the opinion of the professionals in the industry is contrary to the mainstream, and for good reason. 

It is not too late. We are inviting those in charge to reconsider the direction of technological progress of the EU. 

To paraphrase a Native American saying, “When we cut down the last tree, poison the last river, and catch the last fish, only then will we realise that GDP cannot be eaten.”

Zsolt Horváth and Tamás Ignácz are Hungarian automotive application engineers and construction executives.

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