05/10/2024

EV's Batteries Damage the Environment

However, they're still better than gas-fueled vehicles

Earlier this year, NPR's podcast The Sunday Story reached out for listener questions about electric vehicles. You can hear the resulting podcast here. We're also taking some of the most-asked questions and answering them on NPR.org.

Electric vehicles are sometimes called "zero-emission vehicles." But the batteries that go into them are not zero-emission at all. In fact, making those batteries takes a lot of (mostly-not-clean) energy and hurts the environment in other ways, a fact that's become common knowledge after widespread media coverage.

Does that environmental damage cancel out the green benefits of giving up gasoline? Or, as Jennifer Sousie, who owns a Nissan Leaf, put it: "Does the manufacturing and ultimate disposal of the batteries completely negate all the good that the no-emission aspect of my car does?"

Please select this link to read the complete article from NPR.