Righteous Risks Part 3: The Electric Vehicle Halo

From the Risk Monger

David Zaruk

Just imagine if, in the coming months, the following studies would be published in peer-reviewed journals:

• That battery technologies used in electric vehicles (EVs) have a much higher likelihood to spontaneously combust (and it is highly recommended that EVs be banned from underground or covered parking lots and container ships).
• EV lithium batteries emit more elevated electro-magnetic fields (EMFs) that, at exposure levels exceeding 15 minutes, can lead to miscarriages or damage to human DNA which could trigger responses increasing the risk of certain cancers.
• Studies in tire dust from automobile use show how they are the main cause of microplastics released into the sea (78% of all microplastics). As EVs are heavier, they emit much more tire dust.
• A comparative Life Cycle Assessment showed, from cradle to cradle, that EVs are less sustainable and emit more CO2 than diesel cars.
• An impact assessment revealed that present EV batteries cannot be sustainably recycled without a waste management energy and water demand far higher than that needed for recycling entire diesel vehicles.

Would regulators in developed countries, in reading these studies, be able to stop the political juggernaut pushing to replace fossil-fuel based internal combustion engines (ICEs) with EVs? Would regulators be able to introduce limits on where EVs could be parked or publish advice on which vulnerable people should avoid using them? Would they even be able to slow the conversion to an all-EV mobility market within the next decade?

Come on now, let’s be serious. Regulators are helpless in the face the righteous perception of electric vehicles. As it is a moral imperative to replace fossil fuels and the internal combustion power train technologies, these studies would be ignored. Facts have little power when regulators see themselves acting along the path of exuberant righteousness.

Our leaders would be hard-pressed to reject the sleek, clean, quiet electric car of the future with yesterday’s noisy, belching, climate catastrophe on wheels. This is a good v evil decision and the facts have to be filtered likewise.

EVs have posed a righteous risk to the entire automotive industry. This is the first case study in the Righteous Risk series.

More Moral than Green

Since the 2003 Oscars, EVs have been associated with virtue signalling. The Toyota Prius hybrid model had been dubbed “The Pious” and who could ever forget South Park’s memorable 2006 Smug Alert episode. Jokes aside, electric vehicles have been romanticised as the ethical solution to polluting, carbon-emitting transportation. The combustion engine, with its fossil fuel exhaust adding to climate change, air and noise pollution must be taxed for its sins while EVs must be incentivised … deified. We pay homage to EV owners, give them priority spaces near the mall entrances and attractive financial incentives.

Too bad this halo is built on false pretenses. With all of the moral accolades heaped on EVs, it is hard to imagine that they do not enjoy an impeccable environmental profile. You can believe what you really want to believe, but sometimes facts get in the way, and with righteous EVs, these facts overwhelm.

As far back as 2011, when I had given a series of speeches in Ann Arbor, Michigan and had the opportunity to speak with representatives from the Big Three automakers, I was apprehensive about their ethical exuberance and the level of moral cleansing they thought EVs would bring them. Following my discussions, I wrote an article: Don’t Buy an Electric Car! that was met with ethical scorn by those wishing to sanctify their driving experience. My argument then against the rush to EVs, I feel, still resonates (at least with the agnostic).

Around a third of the CO2 a petrol or diesel car emits during its lifetime comes during the production process, before the car is driven off of the lot. Given the higher levels of resources and energy required in producing electric vehicles (from the minerals and rare earth processing to the electronics), a comparative LCI showed that EVs don’t start catching up to diesel vehicles on CO2 emissions until after 100,000 km (assuming their battery lives can be extended). But this is without considering charging sources or post-use recycling.

Given the divination of EVs, this point is not widely discussed among activists waging a Holy War against fossil fuels. And while NGOs campaign against microplastic emissions into the ocean, they absolve themselves when tire dust (the main source of these emissions) proves to be far greater from EV tires. Not to mention the respiratory issues the added tire dust causes.

In a world with proper risk management processes, electric vehicles should be taxed higher to match their heavier consequences on the environment. In a world governed by righteous risks, we are subsidising these ecological pigs and admiring the beauty of their green lipstick.

With the righteousness of electric vehicles safely held high on the altar of our green self-esteem, no reasonable discussion on their risks compared to internal combustion engines could be had. Non-electric powered vehicles had not managed the righteous risks coming from the sanctifying of EVs. But some power chains were less blessed than others.

A Special Place in Hell … For Diesel

Ten years ago, clean diesel technologies were seen as a more climate-friendly solution with better mileage than gas/petrol alternatives. It was easier to blend biofuels into diesel with some kitchen-sink refiners even mixing in their used deep-fryer oil. With better filters catching more particulates, the future of motoring was black. But American manufacturers could not compete with the advanced European diesel technologies so they turned to their Californian regulators to create impossible emission standards for diesel cars and waited for the hammer to fall.

Dieselgate was not an environmental issue but, rather, a moral crisis. One company, Volkswagen, took the fall for the regulatory work-around (although most manufacturers were using the same Bosch technology). It was not that diesel was a major environmental problem but that it was not as clean as the industry claimed it was. They lied … and we were outraged, demanding our money back and demanding that our leaders take action.

Regulators took the opportunity to pose as righteous arbiters extracting justice from an evil industry (even though their unrealistic emission standards were the cause for what I have called the Al Caponisation of Industry). Fines were levied, VW managers hauled into courts and hearings to be harangued as moral shame was cast upon an entire industry.

Within a very short period in 2015, diesel power train technology shifted from being a more sustainable solution to a pariah and a righteous risk for any car manufacturer. Opportunistic virtue leaders radically upped excise taxes on diesel at the pumps, created a phase-out plan for diesel vehicles. Hell, why stop there? Because the automotive industry was evidently run by lying, thieving thugs and gangsters, let’s phase out the entire internal combustion (fossil fuel) power train by 2030. This benediction of EVs as the righteous alternative was timed perfectly. Note that some leaders (like those in the UK and EU) realised their ethical inspiration had ignored basic infrastructure realities and have moved the transition date to 2035.

Within a year of Dieselgate, a new management at Volkswagen unveiled their strategy of transforming their fleet into, you guessed it, a fully electric line within a decade. While I’m sure the German engineers knew about the folly of such a “sustainable transition”, they also knew they could not fight such righteous risks with facts.

VW shareholders, however, were not impressed with such random acts of virtue as the company’s share value never recovered. Consumers are even less impressed, not buying an EV unless their governments pay them to. How much will this righteousness cost taxpayers?

I have written elsewhere that the word “transition” is interpreted differently. For industry, transition is an innovative, technological evolution. The EV transition is a long-term process where other technologies (eg, hydrogen) may overtake present research. For activist campaigners a transition is an event (not a process) that marks the beginning of a revolution away from something deemed bad and towards what has been defined as good. An activist transition is laden with moral imperatives. The EV transition is an immutable event and if this virtuous pilgrimage has negative consequences, so be it.

But this EV transition is part of a bigger shift in industry and a bigger threat to righteous risk management. Why did the automotive industry not stand up and fight the moral zealots? Why did they not defend the value of their technologies against the false green virtues being amplified by activist lobbyists as an essential part of the green transition?

The Downfall of Faux Righteousness

It seems the automotive industry is suffering from the sins of its own zealots. Automotive leaders began to believe their piety and felt that transitioning to EVs would not only make them smell better, but they could also make a lot of money selling more cheaply manufactured cars at the higher prices that an ecological blessing would bestow upon them. They started working with environmental activists to give them an (electric) ethical halo but in the process, strayed from responsible research and technology commitments.

Sustainability was once a key part of product stewardship – that a company should strive to continually improve their products and processes to the point where they were polluting less and having fewer accidents or emissions into the environment. At a certain point in the last few decades, as righteous risks grew more influential, sustainability was transformed into a marketing buzzword. Companies were making hollow ESG commitments to meet moral approval (from their consumers, regulators, stakeholders, investors…), working to identify themselves within the green narrative, embracing transitions as opportunities for new technologies and markets (as it made marketing sense).

Rather than managing a righteous risk caused by the EV ethical juggernaut, automotive industry leaders amplified it. But will their moral deeds translate into economic success? In the next five to ten years, if sanity does not return to the cult compound, a large number of car companies and brands will disappear, unable to sow the seeds of their faux righteousness.

The automotive industry has not managed the righteous risks of EVs and will fall victim to markets and consumers with little ethical fidelity.

If you are an EV owner with a righteous moral outrage toward this article, please consider whether your comment is emotion or fact-based before clicking on the send button. I would prefer a rational discussion.

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