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Will the future of transportation be electric?
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Environmental considerations of electric cars

The production of cars and mostly batteries can have a considerable environmental impact
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The Argument

Producing and charging electric vehicles has environmental costs. Consumers buy electric cars with the expectation that they are cleaner, but their environmental impact may deter people from buying them. Batteries for electric vehicles require rare minerals and take longer to construct than combustion engines. Some of those minerals are lithium, cobalt, and copper. Mining for minerals causes pollution, damaging the environment. The batteries themselves are complex and take longer to make than combustion engines. The extra hours means more energy is being consumed. That energy usually comes from fossil fuels, which produces greenhouse gas emissions. [1] Once electric vehicles are on the road, they continue to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions when they are charging. They consume large amounts of electricity, usually generated by power plants burning fossil fuels. If everyone were to get an electric vehicle, electricity consumption would dramatically increase, increasing fossil fuel consumption. For this reason, the environmental detriments of electric vehicles will prevent this trend from becoming widespread.

Counter arguments

Though electric vehicles have some negative environmental impacts, they are still cleaner than internal combustion engines. The majority of their environmental costs are from the manufacturing process, but once that is finished, they are much cleaner than traditional cars, which continuously burn fossil fuels. Since electric vehicles are cleaner than traditional cars, people looking to purchase new cars and decrease their carbon footprint will buy electric cars.

Proponents

Premises

[P1] Electric vehicles are framed as a clean form of transportation. [P2] The manufacturing process for electric vehicles is environmentally costly. [P3] When electric vehicles are charging on electricity generated by fossil fuels, they contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

Rejecting the premises

References

  1. https://www.dw.com/en/how-eco-friendly-are-electric-cars/a-19441437
This page was last edited on Friday, 3 Jul 2020 at 14:48 UTC

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