Electric vehicles alone are not a panacea

Electric vehicles (EVs) are finding their way onto our roads. But are they coming fast enough to help us reach our climate goals? And do they free us from the need to fundamentally rethink our transportation systems? Unfortunately, the answers are likely “no." For EV enthusiasts like us, these are exciting times: Canada aims for all new sales to be zero-emission vehicles by 2040, the federal and Ontario governments have invested $500-million in the production of EVs, and about 350 new EV models could appear on our roads in the coming years. Of course, the term zero-emission vehicles paints a rosy picture that overlooks some important challenges. Battery EVs, such as the Tesla Model 3—the best selling EV in Canada in 2020—have no tailpipe emissions. But they are not zero-emission vehicles. Their electric batteries are energy intensive to produce and predominantly come from China, a heavily coal-based economy. The electricity to charge EVs is not burden-free; 18 per cent of Canada’s electricity is produced from fossil fuels with important associated greenhouse gas emissions. Even low carbon sources like nuclear and hydro have some emissions associated with fuel processing and plant construction. To compare EVs fairly with conventional internal combustion vehicles, researchers like us compare the emissions over the full vehicle lifetime with a tool called Life Cycle Assessment. When we do so, EVs have about 60 per cent lower carbon emissions than conventional gasoline vehicles on average in Canada. But the reductions can reach 75 per cent with low carbon hydroelectricity, such as in Quebec, or can potentially disappear (at least compared to efficient conventional vehicles) in a heavily fossil fuel-based electricity system such as the 2019 grid in Alberta or Nova Scotia. On balance, EVs have substantial climate (and air quality) benefits compared with conventional vehicles. Policies encouraging EVs are thus necessary and advisable. But, given the current electrification pace, will they happen fast enough to hold the increase in global temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, as pledged by world leaders in 2015? We asked this question for the United States in our latest study. And the results were worrying. We found that following current trends in travel behaviour and rapid electricity decarbonization, the U.S. would need 90 per cent of private light-duty vehicles to be EVs in 2050. That would require all new vehicles sold starting in 2035 to be EVs, just 15 years from now. In comparison, EVs currently represent only about 0.3 per cent of the U.S. fleet, and the most optimistic projections from the International Energy Agency suggest that this number could reach 50 per cent in 2050, far below our 90 per cent projected requirement. Faster EV adoption requires us to rapidly overcome many challenges: range anxiety, higher purchase price for EVs, and limited availability of charging infrastructure. And the current policy pathway in the U.S. is far from adequate. But even if we overcome these challenges, more technical challenges lie ahead of us. A massive electrification of the fleet will create unprecedented stresses to the supply chains of many critical materials—such as lithium, cobalt and manganese. And vast new capacity of renewable energy sources and transmission lines would need to be installed, and to be coordinated with the EVs. This analysis provides lessons that are applicable to Canada. We have among the highest average energy consumption per vehicle—higher than in the U.S., because we love large and heavy vehicles—and one of the highest per capita private vehicle ownership rates in the world. And the current policy pathway falls short even to meet Canada’s official target of 100 per cent EVs by 2040. Maybe it is time to rethink our priorities and ask a critical question: Do we need so many vehicles on the road? In a nutshell, strategies to reduce carbon emissions fall into three main categories: avoid the need for travel, shift to lower carbon transportation modes, and improve the technologies. EVs only deal with one aspect of the problem, the technological one. Private vehicles are more energy intensive to operate per passenger than buses, trains or bikes. And, in many jurisdictions, EVs do not decrease the carbon emissions per passenger compared with public transit, even compared with internal combustion engine buses. In the end, we must not lose sight of the primary need: to reduce the number of conventional private vehicles on the road. EVs are one way to do this, but they are not the only way—or even the best way. Yes, we should electrify our fleet, but EVs must be pursued alongside strong support for buses, trains and bikes. The latter can also bring additional benefits in terms of equity, access, community and healthy living. We need larger, safer, and more reliable infrastructure for public transit and active modes like cycling and walking. And we need to electrify all cars and buses. Unfortunately, this message is easily lost amid the excitement over easy technological solutions. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen decreases in public transit ridership in North America. At the same time, vehicle ownership and ride-hailing (Uber, Lyft) have gone up. And the pandemic has, understandably, worsened the trends. If we truly want to solve our climate problems, governments need to massively invest in public transit, cycling and walking infrastructure, and in EVs. And we need to drive less, in smaller cars. Dr. Alexandre Milovanoff is a researcher, Dr. I. Daniel Posen is an assistant professor and Dr. Heather L. MacLean is a professor in the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto. Their research focuses on the environmental evaluation of energy systems. The Hill Times