The Future of Electric Propulsion
Batteries don’t all deteriorate in the same way. Higher usage doesn’t seem to be statistically significant, unlike continuous use of a battery at maximum or minimum end, which can negatively affect it. In this situation, using a state-of-charge buffer can lower degradation rates as it prevents batteries from becoming completely depleted or fully charged (although this means the effective accessible range for the driver is further reduced).
There is a worry that battery manufacturing and materials sourcing outweigh the positives of the EVs. And there is some truth to the idea that these processes are not environmentally friendly. However, according to a Reuters analysis that factored these datapoints in the calculations, EVs still have less of an environmental impact than ICE vehicles after some time on the road (the “break even” point for an EV will depend on a lot of factors, so it can vary wildly from 8,400 miles for a Tesla 3 in Norway to 78,700 miles for that same car in Poland).
In October, Rho Motion—a company specializing in vehicle markets and economics, and providing forecasts and analyses for the energy transition—organized a seminar series seminar series focused on EV batteries and motors.
Most high-tech goods tend to get cheaper as they are manufactured at increasing volumes, but only up to a point. The electric vehicle industry is growing, but its sudden and dramatic early growth means that matching earlier savings will be difficult, and the law of diminishing returns has set in as shown by the flattening curves.
