Comment on Tesla now offers a $43,990 rear-wheel drive Model Y in the US
Vodulas@beehaw.org 8 months agothe whole process is borderline worse than using fossil fuels when you consider emissions as well as potential fire hazards and poor disposability
That is not really true, especially when you consider lifetime emissions of ICE cars and the refining of oil.
www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths
It is true that there should be more done about using cobalt and to a lesser extent lithium, but even with those issues it is better in the long run. There are companies that are focusing on recycling those minerals and new battery chemistry is moving away from cobalt.
As far as fires go, yes battery fires can be very hard to contain. That being said, EVs catch fire far less often than ICE cars.
realcaseyrollins 8 months ago
Ah, interesting. I did not know this! But I had thought that the concern with the EV car fires was mostly because the cars can set fire unexpectedly, they are hard to contain, and carry more hazardous fumes than a traditional vehicle, not that they catch fire more often.
Vodulas@beehaw.org 8 months ago
There have been a couple recalls with LG batteries that had the potential, but AFAIK the number of times it happened is very low, and again more likely to happen with ICE cars. They tend to err on the side of extreme caution with EV batteries.
Lithium fires are for sure harder to contain, and I won’t deny that not all Fire Departments are equipped. There is special equipment needed, but once you have that it becomes much less of an issue. As far as fumes, I don’t know which is worse. There are a lot of nasty things in both EVs and ICE cars. I’ll have to look into it.