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The cost of electric vehicle batteries

April 4, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The battery pack in an electric car is the most expensive part of the car. Currently, it accounts for as much as 30% of the price. But EV batteries last a long time. Most are guaranteed for 8-10 years and are likely to last as long as 20 years. In practice, only 1.5% of electric cars need battery replacements for one reason or another.

The economics of EV batteries has changed dramatically over time and will continue to do so. EV battery capacity is measured in kWh, the units you are charged for your home electricity. An EV with a 300-mile driving range will have a battery pack that holds something like 75 kWh.

In 2008, when electric cars were just starting to enter the market again after earlier false starts, lithium-ion battery packs cost $1,355 per kWh. When the Tesla Model S was introduced in 2012, packs were about $800. By 2019, packs broke the $200 per kWh barrier. Last year, lithium-ion battery packs reached $115 per kWh.

A combination of technology improvements and strong market competition with growing supplies is driving prices ever lower. Industry analysts expect battery prices to drop well below $100 this year and reach about $80 next year.

The result of all of this cost reduction is that EVs will be cheaper than equivalent internal combustion vehicles, which in fact is already the case in China. Apart from cost, batteries for cars continue to improve so that the driving range of EVs will continue to increase making the cars more attractive and very practical for nearly all drivers.

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How Much Do Electric Car Batteries Cost to Replace?

Photo, posted January 22, 2019, courtesy of Steve Rainwater via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Tourism and greenhouse gas emissions

January 17, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Tourism is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 9% of the global total. Over the past 15 years, its emissions have grown more than twice as fast as those of the rest of the global economy.

Unless the tourism industry finds ways to slow down its growing emissions, those emissions will continue to increase by 3 to 4% each year, meaning that they will double every 20 years. The major drivers behind tourism’s growing emissions have been slow improvements in tourism-related technologies coupled with the rapid growth in demand.

Transportation is tourism’s main source of greenhouse gas emissions. Planes and cars generate the most carbon dioxide but there are contributions from tour buses, boat rides, ferries, and trains as well. The increasing demand for international travel has been the largest contributor to the growth of tourism-related emissions. But just as people’s homes generate emissions from energy use, so do hotels and other lodging used on vacations.

The United States, China, and India are responsible for 60% of the total increase in tourism’s carbon footprint. Generally speaking, it is the world’s wealthiest nations that have the most tourists exploring the world.

Researchers from Australia’s University of Queensland recommended several measures to slow the growth of tourism’s carbon emissions. These include reducing long-haul flights, imposing carbon dioxide taxes, setting carbon budgets, and the use of alternative transportation fuels. At the local level, tourism businesses making use of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles would help.

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Tourism leads the pack in growing carbon emissions

Photo, posted September 14, 2014, courtesy of Gary Campbell-Hall via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Faster electric vehicle charging

December 25, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

One concern that people have in replacing gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles is the time it takes to charge them. Charging an EV at home from an ordinary 110V electrical outlet is a slow process; installing a 220V outlet speeds things up considerably but it still can take all night to fully charge a car. The driving range of electric cars has increased over the years so that now there are many cars that can go 300 miles or more on a charge. For most people, so-called range anxiety is mostly gone. But on long road trips, charging time can be a real issue.

There are increasing numbers of high-speed chargers along or adjacent to major highways that can provide 200 miles of driving range in less than half an hour. But people want more charge, and they want it faster.

There are multiple efforts in improving EV batteries and charger technology aimed at transforming a visit to a public charger to an experience comparable to filling up at a gasoline station.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have designed a new kind of lithium-ion battery that will be able to go from zero battery power to 80% in just 15 minutes. This technology would certainly enhance the capabilities of today’s electric cars. However, it is quite possible that other technologies that surpass this performance will emerge in the near future. There is talk across the industry of cars that can charge up in 5 or 10 minutes. There is also the prospect of many cars that can drive 500 miles on a charge. These features would address the needs or desires of all but a very small number of drivers.

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From zero to 80 per cent in just 15 minutes

Photo, posted May 7, 2022, courtesy of Sharon Hahn Darlin via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Electric cars and power outages

October 21, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

As more and more cars are powered by electricity instead of gasoline, people are beginning to worry about what happens during power outages caused by storms and other disruptive events. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that this is a brand-new problem for drivers. However, when electricity goes out over a sizeable area, most gas pumps stop working and it isn’t easy to keep gas cars running either.

Electric cars are often charged at home every day and such cars are more likely to be almost fully charged than nearly depleted at any time. For those drivers, a power failure is unlikely to be much of a concern unless it persists for a very lengthy period. On road trips, unless a power outage extends over a very wide area, one can probably get to a charger that is still operating.

Nonetheless, the federal government has commissioned researchers at Iowa State University to study potential solutions to possible difficulties in keeping electric cars running during power failures. The goal of the study is to find ways to reduce the outage frequency of chargers by 75% and the power restoration time by 50%.

The study will evaluate the resiliency of charging stations in extreme weather events and identify ways to quickly restore power to charging stations in the event of outages. Included are onsite solar power and battery storage at chargers as well as redundant power lines from different electrical substations. There is even the possibility of trucks delivering pre-charged batteries to charging stations after a storm. Identifying and developing technologies to improve the resilience of charging stations is an important goal as the transition to electric vehicles continues.

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Researchers working to keep electric vehicles charging, even when the lights go out

Photo, posted July 29, 2013, courtesy of Jeff Cooper via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Solid-state batteries for cars

September 19, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Battery-powered electric vehicles have historically faced the challenges of limited driving range and long charging time. In recent years, both of these limitations have been largely overcome for many if not most drivers. Popular EVs on the market can go 300 miles and more on a charge and today’s fastest charging networks can add 200 miles of range in 20 minutes. But many people want even more range and even faster charging. Both of these things will happen in the not-too-distant future.

Multiple companies are working on solid-state batteries, which hold more energy in a given volume than current batteries. The lithium-ion batteries that power today’s EVs (as well as our phones and computers) have a liquid or gel electrolyte. Solid-state batteries use a solid ceramic or polymer electrolyte that provides higher energy density, faster charging times, and reduced fire risk as well.

Samsung announced that it will produce solid-state batteries for vehicles by 2027. Toyota says it is on track to develop a solid-state battery by 2027 or 2028. California-based QuantumScape has an agreement to supply solid-state batteries to Volkswagen for mass production. Tesla has not said what it is doing with regard to solid-state batteries, but it is likely that it’s also pursuing the technology.

The upshot of all of this is that EV ranges are likely to increase dramatically over the next several years leading to the availability of vehicles that can go 600 miles or more on a charge. Given that the cost of EVs is already rapidly becoming at least competitive with if not lower than that of gasoline-powered cars, the days of internal combustion are becoming numbered.

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Want an EV With 600 Miles of Range? It’s Coming

Photo, posted August 17, 2024, courtesy of Bill Abbott via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Driving Electric Is Cheaper For Almost Everyone | Earth Wise

February 24, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A study by University of Michigan researchers found that about 90% of U.S. households would save money on fuel costs by owning an electric car rather than a gas-powered car. So apart from the environmental benefits of electric cars, there are real economic benefits as well.

Both the price of gasoline and the price of electricity vary considerably across the country, so there are differences by location. The study found that 71% of U.S. drivers would see their fuel expenses cut at least in half by driving an electric car.

Drivers in California, Washington, and New York would see the largest fuel savings as well as the biggest emissions reductions from a new electric car. Those states have cleaner electric grids and a bigger gap between the cost of electricity and the cost of gas.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, only looked at fuel costs and did not take into account the purchase cost of new cars. Generally speaking, plug-in cars have higher sticker prices than gas-powered cars but multiple studies have shown that over their lifetimes, electric vehicles end up being cheaper to own than comparable gas-powered vehicles because of lower maintenance costs on top of the fuel savings. The price gap between equivalent gas and electric cars continues to narrow in any case as the cost of batteries continues to decline. On top of that, the recent expansion of federal tax credits on electric cars is making the vehicles cost-competitive right at the point of purchase.

Gasoline prices have come down considerably from their peak a year ago, but for almost everyone, it is still much cheaper to drive on electricity.

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Seven in 10 U.S. Drivers Could Halve Their Fuel Costs by Going Electric, Study Finds

Photo, posted April 23, 2022, courtesy of Pedrik via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Importance Of Wildlife Crossings | Earth Wise

September 23, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Highway accidents involving animals are a big problem for both people and animals. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, motorists in the United States kill one to two million large animals every year. About 200 people are killed annually in the U.S. as a result of those collisions with animals.

These crashes are expensive, too. Deer-vehicle collisions cost an average of more than $8,000 each; elk-vehicle collisions cost about $25,000; and moose-vehicle collisions cost more than $44,000.

One solution that has been quite effective around the world in reducing car-animal collisions is wildlife overpasses and underpasses. They are designed to help animals move in search of food and to escape predators and wildfires. These traffic-spanning bridges and tunnels have been popular in Europe since the 1950s. They look much like regular overpasses for cars but are decked out with native flora. The underpasses, which assist shyer and smaller animals, are typically invisible to drivers.

According to a new economic analysis by researchers at Washington State University, wildlife crossings in Washington State save roughly $235,000 to $443,000 every year per structure.

Wildlife crossing structures range in cost from $500,000 for a tunnel-like underpass to more than $6 million for a broad bridge. There may soon be many more wildlife crossing structures across the country since $350 million was allotted in the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in 2021.

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Wildlife crossings potentially save millions annually in Washington state

How wildlife bridges over highways make animals—and people—safer

Photo, posted March 24, 2017, courtesy of Jeffrey Beall via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The Importance Of Double-Cropping | Earth Wise

July 28, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In agriculture, double-cropping is the practice of growing two or more crops or commodities on the same piece of land in the same calendar year. In Brazil, grain production has increased more than fourfold between 1980 and 2016. The country now stands as the world’s largest exporter of soybeans and the second largest exporter of corn. There were two primary drivers of this increase in food production: cropland expansion and double-cropping.

Cropland expansion has long been recognized as a key driver behind the increase in Brazil’s agricultural output. But cropland expansion is also a threat to biodiversity by driving habitat loss, deforestation, and an increase in carbon emissions.

A new study recently published in the journal Nature Food quantified for the first time the impact that double-cropping had on helping Brazil achieve its tremendous growth in grain production. The international research team examined data from three key agricultural regions in Brazil: the Centre-West, Southeast-South, and Matopiba region. These three regions accounted for 79% of soybean production and 85% of corn production in 2016.

Soybean fields account for more than one third of Brazil’s cropland. While the increase in soybean production was largely a result of cropland expansion, the increase in corn production was a result of double-cropping.

Between 2003 and 2016, the study found that double-cropping in Brazil offset the equivalent of approximately 190 million acres of arable land for corn production. (This is more than twice the annual harvested area of corn in the United States).

Double-cropping represents a way to produce more food without clearing more land.

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The impact of double-cropping

Photo, posted July 15, 2009, courtesy of Daniel Bauer via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

How Environmentally Friendly Are We? | Earth Wise

January 27, 2020 By EarthWise 1 Comment

Many of us are very concerned about the environment and want to try to do the right things as we go about our daily lives. New research from the University of Gothenburg shows that we tend to overestimate just how much we are actually doing.

A study of over 4,000 people in United States, England, India, and Sweden revealed that most people are convinced that they act more environmentally friendly than the average person. Their actions might include buying eco-labelled products, saving household energy, recycling, driving a hybrid or electric car, and reducing purchases of plastic bags. Participants in the survey rated themselves as more environmentally active than other people, including both unknown people as well as their own friends.

The results are in keeping with a general tendency people have to overestimate their own abilities. Studies over the years have shown that most people consider themselves, for example, to be more honest, more creative, and better drivers than others. This sort of over-optimism apparently also applies to environmentally friendly behaviors.

The data from the survey revealed that the participants were more likely to overestimate their engagement in activities they perform often and draw the faulty conclusion that the things they do often, they in fact do more often than others.

A consequence of thinking that you are more environmentally friendly than other people is that it can reduce the motivation to act environmentally friendly in the future. In fact, when we think we are more environmentally friendly than others, we actually end up becoming less environmentally friendly.

Logically speaking, the majority of people cannot be more environmentally friendly than the average person. We are not living in Lake Wobegone where all children are above average.

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The majority consider themselves more environmentally friendly than others

Photo, posted March 6, 2014, courtesy of Karlis Dambrans via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Lighting Up Batteries

December 24, 2019 By EarthWise 2 Comments

One of the things that hampers the adoption of electric vehicles is range anxiety. Drivers worry that they will run out of charge before they get to the closest charging station. Range anxiety has lessened considerably in recent years as electric cars have incorporated larger and larger battery packs yielding driving ranges well over two hundred and even over three hundred miles.

With these extended driving ranges, drivers then turn their attention to how long it takes to charge. Tesla’s Superchargers have gotten to the point where a car can add 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and 200 miles in less than half an hour. Fast charging systems are improving the charge times for other electric models as well.

Nevertheless, drivers would ideally like to reduce charging times to as little as possible in order to provide the convenience experienced in gasoline cars.

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have reported a mechanism for speeding up the charging of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. By exposing the battery cathode to a beam of concentrated light, the charging time can be reduced by a factor of two or more. If this could be commercialized, it could be a real game changer for electric vehicles.

The research used specially crafted lithium-ion cells with transparent quartz windows. Shining white light into the windows caused a semiconductor material known as LMO to change its charge state and drive the charging reaction more quickly in the lithium ions of the battery.

Using this photo-assisted technology in vehicle batteries would require substantial redesign that would allow concentrated light to illuminate battery electrodes during charging. How practical that is remains to be seen, but the payoff would be substantial.

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Shedding new light on the charging of lithium-ion batteries

Photo, posted June 30, 2018, courtesy of Open Grid Scheduler via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Wildlife Bridges

June 17, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Highway accidents involving animals are a big problem for both people and animals. About 200 people die every year in the U.S. as a result of collisions with animals. In total, one to two million large animals are killed by motorists every year. And these crashes are expensive: deer-car collisions cost an average of more than $8,000 each; elk-vehicle collisions about $25,000; and moose-vehicle collisions over $44,000.

In the United States, there are 21 threatened and endangered species whose very survival is threatened by road mortalities. These include Key deer in Florida, bighorn sheep in California, and red-bellied turtles in Alabama.

One solution that has been quite effective around the world in reducing car-animal collisions is wildlife overpasses and underpasses. Crossings and fencing that guide animals over or under highways reduce collisions by 85-95%.

These traffic-spanning bridges and tunnels have been popular in Europe since the 1950s. The overpasses usually look much like regular overpasses for cars but are decked out with native flora. The underpasses, which assist shyer and smaller animals, are typically invisible to drivers.

Washington State has recently started building wildlife bridges and underpasses on Interstate 90. These passes will allow elk, black bears, mountain lions, pika, and even trout to traverse what was once a near-impenetrable barrier of road.

Some animals that are accustomed to human structures start using the crossings almost immediately. For others, there is learning curve. As in many things, the early adapters are important as they provide paths and model behavior that more reticent animals learn to follow.

Wildlife bridges are a very good thing for wildlife and for people.

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