Andrew Couch: EVs - great for business, but what about the environment?

What does the future hold for our transport system? Photo / 123rf

OPINION:

It was great to see Zemtec showcase its first E-bus last week at the Bus & Coach Conference in Rotorua. The advent of the electric engine offers start-up companies like Zemtec an exciting future.

Zemtec can take advantage of the fact it can develop the manufacturing processes for this new technology while the old-world manufacturers re-tool. As the Zemtec website points out, its cool E-bus is 30 per cent lighter than other electric buses because other manufacturers are attempting to modify their diesel designs for electric technology and therefore not getting all the potential productivity gains.

This is part of the thesis behind unicorn start-up Rivian in the United States with its skateboard design that offers significant promise for greater manufacturing flexibility. Rivian had its IPO last year and raised $13 billion to execute its business plan having produced very few actual products.

At times of change, great opportunities arise and the transition to the electric engine is a very big deal for industry – the electric age. Let's hope the Australasian investment industry – with its increasing depth owing to giant KiwiSaver and Australasian superannuation pools – supports local transport companies like Zemtec to get to the next level.

The main benefit I see for electric vehicles is they are great for business (when the purchase prices get reasonable). Electric vehicles have far fewer moving parts than the internal combustion engine (ICE) – and it is a big difference; typically only 20 parts compared to 2000-plus for the old technology. Hence, it should be no surprise that maintenance costs are far lower (10-20 per cent of ICE lifetime costs excluding battery replacement costs).

The electric engine is also significantly more efficient and so the charging costs are much better than the gasoline equivalent, which is important in the current high fuel price environment.

While EVs offer great opportunities to reduce business costs and for new ventures, how good are they for the environment? Of course, they offer the prospect of zero tailpipe emissions and the scope to be charged using renewable energy sources, as the global economy makes this transition. However, it is hard to escape the fact that the electric battery inside each electric car is very bad for the environment.

Here is the profile of the electric batteries as it stands today:

1. The manufacturing processes of the batteries mean that the total carbon footprint is usually 40-60 per cent higher than ICE. The bigger the engine (measured in kWh capacity), the bigger the vehicle, the more pollution in the manufacturing process.

2. Only 5 per cent of electric batteries are recycled (compared to 90 per cent-plus of existing lead-acid ICE batteries). New technologies are being tested by many new companies and research organisations to solve this problem - but that is the deal at the moment.

3. The components of the lithium-ion batteries (lithium, nickel, cobalt) all have bad carbon profiles as mined products. There are a lot of issues with cobalt whose mining is focused in the Congo that, for example, has a poor human rights track record in its mining production.

The transition to the electric engine is a very big deal for industry. Photo / 123rf

The correct way to evaluate the carbon footprint of electric vehicles (or any products) is measurement of the whole-of-life carbon footprint; the embedded (or upfront) carbon content, upstream carbon from the charging, tailpipe and other emissions plus the recycling profile. All these things need to be added up to get the real carbon footprint.

For example, I have seen research that suggests a reasonably big car such as the electric Tesla 3 has a whole-of-life carbon footprint of 140-150g per km, worse than some combustion engines. As the electric car gets bigger, so do the lifecycle emissions. As Americans love their big cars, I cannot see electric vehicles really starting to meaningfully lower emissions in the US until some of the problems associated with the electric batteries are overcome.

In New Zealand, electric car adoption is behind projected rates of penetration even though we have a clean car discount scheme. And the reality is that we love our SUVs, essentially another big car culture.

I do not think electric vehicles' adoption rates will hockey-stick like many new technologies, in New Zealand or anywhere. A car is still a big-ticket item and, unfortunately, I also fear the prices will not come down to affordable levels as many commentators predict – at least, not for a long time. The carbon-intensive mining of the battery raw materials is going to be hampered by supply-side constraints that should keep prices high and climbing.

Other technologies such as hydrogen cars are not yet readily available to make a meaningful contribution (aside from in Japan) – although show great long-term promise, perhaps better than electric technology. One of the real challenges with hydrogen is the cost of transporting it - very expensive. So distributing it across the whole country as a general-purpose fuel is prohibitive at the moment.

It is my view that, in the foreseeable future, it is going to have to be public transport patronage increases that deliver the emission savings required to meet our near-term (five- to 10-year) transport emission targets. This is acknowledged in the latest emission target document by Auckland Council – the Transport Emission Reduction Pathway (TERP) where public transport is determined to need to rise fivefold to account for 29 per cent of Auckland trip km. I think it will need to be higher because the actual carbon lifecycle footprints of private cars will dictate this.

We simply do not have too much choice as public transport has the virtue of gaining carbon savings through pooling (taking more passengers on a single vehicle). Whenever a bus is full, it means lots of private car trips have just been saved. The effect of this is certain and measurable whereas new electric and hydrogen technologies do not offer this virtue at this junction.

Getting people into public transport is key and this will be achieved by offering them value - not zero fares but maximum convenience that they would be glad and wise to pay for. This contrasts with the current focus on decarbonisation through new technologies. Is it really a surprise that our resources will give the best economic output and the lowest carbon footprint in transport through sharing?

• Dr Andrew Couch is co-founder and managing director of ridepooling company Kara.