Electric Cars: Solution or Problem?

Electric mobility generally stands for sustainability and environmental protection, but it is less known what conditions must be met for the success of electric cars and to what extent necessary measures could harm the environment. The question is whether e-mobility is the long-term solution for climate protection and cleanliness.

E-mobility, the ecological solution?

Due to global warming, there has been a greater awareness of environmental protection and sustainability in Germany for several years than in previous decades. In addition to green electricity providers, manufacturers of electromobility also benefit from consumers' current environmental awareness.
Even if e-cars are legally declared as zero-emission vehicles, they are generally responsible for more CO2 emissions than is generally known. In the course of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation's "Future Car, Environment and Mobility" round table, the former research worker at VW, Dr. Alfred Hartung, questioned the sustainability of electric cars in a lecture.

Why e-mobility is not a solution

It is obvious that electric cars do not provide a solution for less traffic and parking. An electric car causes traffic jams and requires parking spaces just like a vehicle with a petrol engine. Furthermore, electric cars cause comparable noise due to rolling noises, since today's combustion engines generally only generate minimal noise. Accordingly, e-mobility is not a solution in this regard.
The former member of the Bundestag and non-fiction author Winfried Wolf described in an interview with the SR that the car lobby's demand to establish electromobility in Germany has mainly economic backgrounds and leads to crowded streets. Environmentally friendly measures are only a pretext because there are no concrete plans to replace the existing vehicles.
The supply of electric vehicles with electricity would cause further logistical problems. If the 47.1 million passenger vehicles registered in Germany were electric cars overnight, there would not be enough charging options for them, which would result in expensive investments.
The main argument that achieving a better carbon footprint through electromobility would only prove to be minimal due to increased raw material extraction, Hartung continues. The annual production of nickel, cobalt, and lithium would be approximately 50, 50 and 250 percent higher than for current consumption in the production of 11.8 million electric vehicles (25 percent of the currently registered vehicles in Germany). In addition, electric cars are often purchased by consumers as an additional vehicle and would, therefore, be an additional burden in addition to the existing combustion vehicles.
According to Hartung, consumers should continue to use public transport and bicycles for short and medium distances instead of buying an electric vehicle.

How e-mobility can become a solution

In an interview with the Wetterauer Zeitung, environmentalist and physicist Dr. Werner Neumann sees electric vehicles as the future of mobility. Neumann emphasizes that the federal government is not concerned with "electric SUVs", but rather with the advantages of the e-scooter, electric bicycle, e-cars and the train. In addition, e-mobility would make Germany less dependent on energy imports.
In addition to less manufacturing effort, the electric drive is about ten times more efficient than the gasoline engine, in which you have to invest four times more energy. Because "the electric drive has an efficiency advantage: from the battery to the drive to the wheel, there are hardly any losses," according to Neumann. Neumann replies to the argument that the production of batteries for e-mobility would increase CO2 emissions, that an e-car would have compensated for the additional effort after 20,000 kilometers.

Conclusion

In the debate about pro or contra electromobility, there are arguments and counter-arguments. How the disposal or replacement of diesel and petrol vehicles could proceed is not yet fully developed, nor is the lack of charging infrastructure if the number of approved electric vehicles increases. Nevertheless, according to Neumann, electric cars and electromobility could represent a long-term solution for containing CO2 emissions and the associated global warming.
In order to be able to profitably and long-term from the advantages of sustainable transportation, technological advances and infrastructural measures are necessary.