Are electric vehicles better for the planet than gasoline-powered vehicles? This is the question we explore in my new documentary "Electric Vehicles: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."
Whether one agrees with former President Joe Biden, who calls climate change "an existential threat," or whether one agrees with the late physicist Freeman Dyson, who dismissed Al Gore and his "An Inconvenient Truth" as "lousy science," this question remains. Are electric vehicles better for planet Earth than "gas guzzlers"?
After all, fossil-fuel-generated energy is required to manufacture an electric vehicle and then to transport it to the dealership. The electricity required to charge it comes mostly from fossil-fuel-generated power.
Electric vehicles are a triumph of technology, with incredible features. They are quiet, fast and fun to drive. The self-driving feature, while not foolproof, will likely save lives because human driving error is more common. (There are some gas-powered cars with a similar feature.) There are concerns about driving range, as well as the availability for charging stations for long drives.
Right now, an EV compared to a gas-powered car of similar size may be more expensive. There are still tax incentives available, but they may be reduced, if not phased out at some point. With the more expensive purchase price, mandates to buy an EV or to restrict the sale of gas cars stand to hurt those less well off.
Then there is the China factor. The computer chips required for the EV disproportionately come from China. The minerals in the batteries — lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese — are mined, processed and manufactured in China, or in places under China's control, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Take cobalt in the Congo. Two years ago, NPR wrote "How 'modern-day slavery' in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy." It featured the work of Siddharth Kara, author of the book "Cobalt Red." Kara said: "People (including children) are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain. ... Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe -- and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese (workers) touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust. ... There's complete cross-contamination between industrial excavator-derived cobalt and cobalt dug by women and children with their bare hands (for $1 or $2 a day)."
As for reviews about "Electric Vehicles: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Paul Bond, veteran journalist formerly of "Newsweek" and "The Hollywood Reporter," wrote: "Larry Elder's latest documentary ... begins with ... provocative claims: EVs might harm the planet more than gas-powered cars, they rely on child labor and open the door to privacy invasions and hacking. ... Whether you're waving a Trump flag or preaching clean living, Elder's film demands a second look at the EV craze. It's not just about cars -- it's about who controls your life, your data, and your future."
Tyler O'Neil of The Daily Signal wrote: "While environmental activists and EV manufacturers have crafted a narrative that EVs are not just the cars of the future but our only clean solution to an ostensible climate crisis, Elder uncovers the dirty truth: EVs require more energy to produce, provide less freedom for drivers, empower America's chief rival in the world, and actually make things worse for the environment.
'Mass delusion has always fascinated me,' Elder says in the film, 'Scientists, media people, politicians, academics have convinced the average person that our climate is in peril and if we don't do something real fast to get us off fossil fuels, we're going to be in trouble. I just, intuitively, am skeptical about that.'"
"He asks the hard questions and comes away with unsettling answers -- for the proponents of EVs. Ironically, only the oft-demonized fossil fuels give viewers a sense of hope for the future, and many political and ideological forces are attempting to snuff out the lights powered by the internal combustion engine."
"Electric Vehicles: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is available on SalemNow.com.
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