Clearing the air on EVs

On August 11th, you published a letter from an “environmentalist” attacking electric vehicles, “Electric vehicles aren’t clean.” That letter was a toxic brew of distortions, inaccuracies and talking points of the fossil fuel industry.

It is true that building any kind of car or light truck has an environmental cost, and today’s batteries require a lot of mining, so much so that when cars are new on the showroom floor, an EV may be no cleaner than its fossil fuel counterparts. That all changes once you start driving. At that point the EV is the clear winner as they run so much cleaner, and with every mile driven the gap grows wider.

The letter went on to lament a lack of power regeneration in today’s EVs. Pathetic. 100 percent of EVs on the market recharge their batteries through regeneration.

Then EVs were attacked for not including solar cells. A few EVs do, most don’t. Today’s solar cells can’t charge a big family-friendly car or truck enough to make a difference. Some small, lightweight vehicles like the Aptera come with solar.

The big lie came with the comparison with hydrogen fuel cells, a favorite distraction put forth by the fossil fuel industry. Why do they love hydrogen so much? Over 95% of today’s hydrogen is made by cooking the methane from natural gas. A very dirty process. Waiting for a hydrogen infrastructure that may never show up lets them continue to profit by destroying our climate.

John W.S. Marvin

Spokane