Last year the European Parliament approved a law to ban the sale of any new car with a combustion engine by 2035. This includes petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles, so in just eleven years we will only be able to purchase electric vehicles (EVs). This is thought to be beneficial for the environment because EVs do not emit pollution into the air. However, producing the massive amount of electric energy that would be needed to charge these cars will be very expensive, and could cause more pollution than is saved by the EVs. We will also have to build enough charging stations to accommodate hundreds of millions of vehicles. These are daunting challenges, and there are other problems caused by transitioning to electric vehicles so quickly. Perhaps it would be more prudent to integrate EVs into our lives more gradually. Let’s have a look at the facts.

While electric cars produce zero tailpipe emissions, the electricity used to charge them is generated by power plants - and most of them still rely on polluting fossil fuels. Thus the environmental benefits of electric cars will not be realized until we have fully transitioned to clean energy sources for electricity generation. Otherwise, the reduction in vehicle emissions will be offset by the increased pollution from the power plants needed to charge all of our cars. And think about this: there are over 400 million cars in the EU. If all of them transition to EVs, where will the massive amount of extra electric energy to charge those cars come from? The only way to create that amount of clean reliable electricity would be to build dozens of new nuclear power plants. This would be incredibly expensive, and would take decades. Not to mention that several countries still resist nuclear energy.

Another significant hurdle to this rapid change is the availability and efficiency of charging stations. People who live in private houses with a garage can charge their EV cars at home, but over 60% of EU residents do not have that possibility. So most people will need to go to a charging station. Right now a regular charger takes 4-6 hours to charge 80% of the battery (depending on the size of the car’s battery). There are some new direct-current fast-chargers that can fill a battery to 80% in 30 to 50 minutes. But even these are very slow compared to the five minutes that it now takes to fill your car with petrol. How are people going to adjust to spending hours to charge their cars? Then there is the daunting task of building a network of charging stations that is large enough to serve the entire population. We have about 140,000 petrol stations in the EU, so how many new charging stations would have to be built to replace them?

There are also concerns linked to the EV batteries - both practical matters and ecological problems. On the practical side there is ‘range anxiety’, which refers to the fear of running out of battery power before reaching a charging station. Although the range of electric car batteries has gradually improved over the years, it is still a problem when travelling longer distances. The environmental concerns are centred on the production and disposal of the batteries. EV batteries contain scarce resources, including rare earth metals and minerals. The extraction and processing of these materials have serious environmental and human rights implications - including child labour. In addition, the global supply chain for battery materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, is concentrated in a few countries (including China) that are not always friendly to the West. Scientists are working to make batteries that are not dependent on these materials, but for now our supply is at the mercy of those countries.

It certainly seems that stopping the sale of non-EV cars in just 11 years is a bit premature. IF we had a reliable supply of clean energy that was capable of charging 400 million cars in Europe; and IF charging technology was rapid enough to fully charge a car in minutes rather than hours; and IF we could create over 100,000 rapid charging stations with easy access; and IF battery technology was advanced enough to give EVs a range similar to petrol cars; THEN changing to 100% EVs would make sense. But at the moment none of those conditions are even remotely possible. So why are we rushing to make all vehicles electric, when there is a simple alternative that can achieve the same goals without the problems. That alternative is the dependable hybrid car that has been used successfully for decades.  

A hybrid car has both a petrol engine and an electric motor that work together. It automatically switches from one to the other based on the level of battery power and driving conditions. This gives it much greater fuel efficiency and less pollution than petrol cars. Most hybrids are self-charging, (though there are some plug-in hybrids), so the battery does not need to be plugged into a charger. It charges when the petrol engine is running, and also gets some electricity from using the brakes (regenerative braking). This means that hybrids (unlike EVs) do not increase the need for more production of electricity. Furthermore, hybrid cars do not have ‘range anxiety’ because you can stop at a petrol station to refill the gasoline engine. The existing petrol infrastructure would be sufficient, with no need to build thousands of charging stations. 

All of this is not to say that EVs don’t have a place in our future, but perhaps they should be integrated into our lives with more patience. If the government wants to stop sales of petrol and diesel vehicles in 2035, then it makes sense to keep the hybrids as an ecological bridge to a possible all-electric future. This would also be financially more feasible, as hybrids are much less expensive than EVs. A gradual transition would see those who have private garages in their homes changing to EVs if they wished. Meanwhile the majority of drivers could switch from petrol to hybrid at a much lower cost - both in money and convenience.