EVs are not appropriate for Australia, as the distance between the major cities is too great. Fact:  Most EVs sold in Australia today have a range of between 300 and 500 kilometres, so if distance is a priority, it can be attended to very easily. In addition, the federal government has committed to having a fast-charging station every 70 to 100 kilometres around the country, so distance will no longer be a problem for those owning EVs. These fast-chargers can a hundred kilometres worth of power into a car in just five minutes. True, this is not as fast as filling up at a petrol station, but the cost advantage is likely to make the wait worthwhile. And, of course, even faster chargers are in the pipeline. BYD has now installed chargers in China that can put 900 kilometres into a car in just 9 minutes. The author (Ken Enderby) charging his EV in Goulburn, in country NSW [Source: Ken Enderby]

EV batteries only have a life span of 10 to 12 years, so producing them is expensive and wasteful. Fact: EV batteries now have a lifespan of up to 20 years. Manufacturers like Tesla, BYD, MG and Nissan give an eight-year/160,000-kilometre warranty for their cars. At the average distance driven each day by passenger vehicles in Australia (34.5 km), this equates to a 12-year warranty. Tesla batteries are even more impressive, degrading by 10 percent after 250,000 kilometres of driving. This means an average driver could expect the battery to last 19 years!  But that is not the end of the story. When a lithium battery does reach the end of its life in an EV, it can be used for another 10 to 12 years in a different form – as a home battery or as part of the electricity grid. In Japan, recycled car batteries are being used to power street lights. And when the battery finally degrades to the point where it is no longer usable in any form, its critical materials can be 100 percent recycled. 

Hybrid vehicles are much better than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, as far as emissions are concerned. They are the way forward, not EVs.  Fact: Hybrids are significantly better than ICE vehicles, when it comes to emissions. They emit about two thirds as much carbon over their lifetimes as their petrol-driven counterparts. (Plug-in hybrids emit slightly less than this.) EVs, by contrast, emit only a third as much CO2 as ICE vehicles, and only a quarter as much if powered by renewables. If they are also produced using renewables, then their carbon impact is just 4 percent that of legacy vehicles. 

Even though electric vehicles do not produce any emissions when they are driven, they still produce emissions when they are manufactured and when they are powered from the grid. So, they cannot significantly cut emissions. Fact: While EVs emit about 75 percent more CO2 during their production (mainly due to the battery, which is absent from legacy vehicles), they quickly compensate for this by emitting far less when on the road. Even if powered entirely from the grid in Australia, an EV emits far less CO2 than an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle. It overtakes the ICE vehicle at around 38,000 kilometres and saves on emissions for every kilometre after that. Given that an Australian commuter drives an average of 12,600 km per year, or 34.5 km per day, the crossover point with an ICE vehicle is just three years.  In Australia, the crossover point is also determined geographically. In states like NSW and Queensland, where fossil fuels still power most of the grid, that point is higher than in ones like Tasmania and South Australia, where the grid is mostly powered by renewables. In the latter two cases, the crossover point is 23,000 km, or 22 months.  Of course, if an EV is powered entirely by renewables, then its crossover point is lower again and the emissions saved a vastly greater. In Australia, a majority of EVs are powered at this way. And once EVs are actually made using renewable energy, they will have a very low carbon footprint indeed. This is already happening at Tesla’s factory in Texas, which is powered by 70,000 solar panels on the roof, with a gigantic battery complex to run the plant on cloudy days and at night.

Big batteries, home batteries and EV batteries all use cobalt, which is mined under appalling conditions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Those who promote these technologies are as responsible for these conditions as the mining companies themselves.  Fact: Most modern batteries no longer use nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) technology. Instead, they use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology, which does not contain cobalt. In Australia, all of the big batteries being installed around the country use LFP, as do all the major brands of home batteries.  As far as EV batteries are concerned, 60 percent of all those manufactured globally use LFP technology rather than NMC. The figure is 70 percent for vehicles made in China.  The devices that do all use cobalt are mobile phones, laptops, tablets and power tools. Every single one in them contains it. So, if people are concerned about cobalt mining in the Congo, they should be protesting against the use of these devices, not batteries. Interestingly, it is also used in oil refineries to remove sulphur from crude oil, to produce cleaner fuel. So, the fossil fuel industry is also dependent on it.

EV batteries contain nickel, which is highly polluting to produce.  Fact: This myth was given voice in an episode of Spotlight on Australian television in April 2025. The program alleged that nickel produced in Indonesia is highly damaging to the local environment, and that this nickel is used in Chinese-made EVs. The implication was that EV are no less damaging to the environment than internal combustion engine vehicles.  Nothing could actually be further from the truth. While it’s true that Indonesian nickel mining is environmentally unfriendly, it is not used in EV batteries; it’s the wrong grade. The countries that produce the correct grade are Canada, Russia and Australia, where the mining process is far less harmful to local ecosystems.  But this is largely irrelevant, as 60 percent of all EVs use Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries, which contain no nickel at all. [Nor do they contain any cobalt. See the following myth.] The figure for Chinese EVs is 70 percent, a fact that was ignored in the Spotlight episode.  In fact, 70 percent of all nickel mined globally is used to produce stainless steel. This is where Indonesia’s nickel goes. So yes, campaign against Indonesian mining practices, but not against EVs. They are not the culprit in this story.

Electric vehicles are barely any less polluting than their fossil fuel counterparts, so it’s a waste of time promoting them.  Fact: Electric vehicles are way less polluting than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. Even if they are powered entirely by ‘dirty’ electricity from the grid, they still produce 70 percent fewer emissions than cars powered by fossil fuels. If their energy is sourced purely from renewables, then their emissions are next to zero. And, of course, if the electricity is sourced from rooftop solar, then the cost to the owner is negligible. An electric vehicle charging [Source: Ken Enderby]

Lithium mining has a devastating effect on the environment, so will cause widespread damage if we have to rely on it for our energy needs.  Fact:  It’s true that lithium production can be environmentally damaging, particularly in ecologically sensitive regions like the Atacama salt flat in Chile. For this reason, strict regulations will be needed to ensure that mining is carried out as responsibly as possible.  Of course, the bulk of lithium mining no longer takes place in sensitive regions like Atacama. Australia now produces 52 percent of the world’s lithium and does not use the brine extraction technique used in Chile. Instead, it uses the much less damaging hard rock extraction technique. In addition, new technologies like Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) are on the horizon. These promise dramatic improvements in the environmental impact of lithium mining.  Finally, it is not yet certain that lithium batteries will underpin the global shift to renewables. Many alternatives are being developed, and only time will tell which of these will win out.

Demand for lithium will increase 42-fold if all the world’s cars become electric. There simply isn’t enough lithium in the world to make this transition possible. Fact:  It is true that the world’s known sources of lithium would run out by mid-century, if we were restricted to using lithium just once in batteries or if no other technologies became available. Neither of those caveats is true, however. In the first place, lithium can be recycled. To quote a 2021 report by BloombergNEF, “With universal battery recycling, not only does primary lithium demand remain below known reserves, but there is also the prospect of a fully circular battery industry, with supply of recycled lithium exceeding total annual demand by mid-century.” [See James Fernyhough, “EV-to-grid could supply three times peak electricity demand: BNEF,” Renew Economy, 9/6/21.] In fact, the commercial recycling of lithium is already a reality. Hydrovolt owns the biggest EV battery recycling plant in Europe. Based in Norway, it is capable of recycling 12,000 tonnes of battery packs each year. 95 percent of the battery packs can be recycled. Secondly, a number of new technologies have been developed which either do not require lithium at all or use it in far smaller quantities than is the case now. These technologies include sodium-ion batteries, zinc-ion batteries, zinc-air flow batteries, vanadium flow batteries, nickel hydrogen batteries and iron air batteries. Iron air batteries offer the prospect of storing energy at one-tenth the cost of traditional lithium-ion systems. So, the supply of lithium is not going to be a problem.

The manufacture of lithium batteries produces more greenhouse gases than the batteries save during their lifetime. Hence the move to renewables is futile.  Fact: A recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) showed that the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the manufacture of lithium batteries are offset after 6 to 18 months of battery use. Given that such batteries currently have a lifespan of about fifteen years, this represents a huge saving in emissions.