The Downside of Electric Vehicles

story by Lindsie Avalos

Electric vehicles are becoming more and more popular by the year. So many say they are helpful for the environment, but what are the cons of using them? At my previous job located in Cle Elum, WA, the coffee shop had an EV and Tesla charging station next to it. I was curious about their cars and asked Tesla owners and other EV owners how they liked their cars.

Time-Consuming

From what I was told by several Tesla owners, it takes on average 45 minutes to an hour to fully charge a Tesla at a Supercharger, if it is not a Supercharger it can take up to 2 hours. For regular EVs, it takes up to 2-7 hours. My co-worker had a customer stay during her entire shift because he had to fully charge his EV to go to Yakima. He explained that he would also have to stay an extra 5 hours in Yakima to charge his EV before heading back to Seattle.

Limited Charging Stations

I have had Tesla and EV customers complain to me about limited charging stations heading toward their destination. They said that they had to stop every 1-2 hours to charge their vehicle but were worried there was not going to be one along the way.

Lithium Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries are what EVs are powered by. The Institute for Energy Research found that mining and producing these batteries are three times worse for the environment than the production of regular car batteries. It also mentioned that almost 90% of lithium-ion batteries land in landfills, which happened to have caused 124 wildfires between 2017 and 2020 in the PNW. I also found that almost 100% of U.S. car batteries are recycled versus 5% of lithium-ion batteries that are recycled in the world.

Overall, I found that EVs are time-consuming when it comes to travel time, charging stations are hard to come by and are not contributing to the environment at all.