Ashutosh Verma is the Founder of Exalta, a one-stop solution to green energy innovations, which came into existence in 2009 under Insparc Technologies Pvt. Ltd. He is a visionary entrepreneur and author, who is driven by his core philosophy of infusing intelligence and technology and creating green energy innovations for nation-building. Each of his professional landmarks is focused on helping build world-class integrated and sustainable energy capabilities that India needs to accelerate its growth.
There is a lot of eagerness among people regarding the growth prospects of EVs. EVs look good, but they also have the added advantage of being environment-friendly. Electric vehicles produce zero emissions, thus making their effect cleaner, better, and more environmentally friendly than conventional vehicles.
As the development of EV vehicles increases in substitute to ICE vehicles, the emissions of air pollutants at power plant sites are likely to increase. Still, the emissions of contaminants on the roads are expected to decrease significantly.
According to Jasmine Shah, Vice-Chairperson, Dialogue, and Development Commission, the electric vehicle policy enforced in Delhi would help in reducing the carbon emission by 4.8 million tonnes by 2024.
The development of electric vehicles can help decrease CO2 emissions and the demand for petroleum goods. However, there are some problems with this too. The benefits of replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) automobiles with EVs might be negated by comparatively higher air pollutant emissions from manufacturing plants. But the most significant advantage of EVs is that they create less pollution on the road and are environment friendly.
While UK and France set their mind to phase out conventional combustion-engine cars by 2040, Nitin Gadkari announced that India will be running 100% electric vehicles by 2030.
In the budget speech 2022, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman shared that India aspires to become a “global hub of manufacturing of electric vehicles.”
Conventional transportations have a very negative impact on metropolitan areas. ICE automobile emissions affect human health and agriculture, buildings, and the natural environment. From an environmental perspective, replacing ICE vehicles with EVs is considered suitable for the climate because of the potential decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2. Another advantage is that, as EVs become more common. Their manufacturing reaches global heights; battery recycling has the potential to become more efficient and reduce the requirement for the extraction of new materials. Therefore, all this will lower the dependency on mining and the creation of new batteries. EVs generate significantly lower emissions over their lifetime than the vehicles running on fossil fuels, irrespective of the source that produces the electricity.
Five reasons why EVs are environment-friendly
Here are the top five reasons why the world is moving towards electric vehicles as they are less destructive to the environment.
EVs produce zero direct emissions
Full electric vehicles don’t require a tailpipe, as they don’t produce emissions. Traditional machines combust gasoline or diesel, creating energy at the expense of having hazardous carbon emissions. The EVs, on the other hand, are emission-free. The most common type of battery used in EVs is the lithium-ion battery, which can be depleted and charged constantly without contributing to air pollution.
Clean battery
TODAY, the EV batteries have a carbon trace that’s 2 to 3 times lower than two years ago and growing cleaner day by day. With better understanding and awareness, manufacturers of EVs are setting guidelines for their battery suppliers. For example, they demand suppliers to use renewable energy sources only during product manufacturing. These sources can help the large quantity of energy required to produce EV batteries without releasing dangerous emissions.
Eco-friendly production
Even when they use fossil fuels, EVs contribute more negligible emissions compared to the ICE vehicles. Many electric charging stations are using renewable energy to charge EVs. Some are still powered by charcoal-burning and are therefore considered dangerous for the environment.
Even when EVs are powered by coal, they still lead to lower emissions over their lifetime compared to the ICE vehicles.
Low noise pollution levels
Electric vehicles are comparatively much quieter than ICE vehicles and exhaust systems, producing less noise pollution. Although the gas and diesel cars are equipped with silencers to make minimum noise, the exhaust headers are still frequently louder than the standard equivalents.
Environment-friendly manufacturing
One of the big problems that EV manufacturers face is producing a functional yet lightweight vehicle. Lighter EVs have a lower carbon footprint, but the traditional materials make it difficult to achieve this. But the recycled and organic materials available nowadays are pretty much similar to conventional materials. They’re very light, eco-friendly, strong, as well as durable.
Various conventional manufacturers use recycled materials for small components, but these materials are not used for a vehicle’s structure. EV manufacturers are using perfect eco-friendly parts to make lighter and more efficient vehicles.
Weight reduction is not just the only benefit of using recycled and organic materials. Still, they are also healthy for the environment. Using new materials like metals and plastics is very unsustainable and creates significant pollution. At the same time, the use of natural or recycled material minimizes the environmental impact both during and after the EV product process.
While electric vehicles have a great set of challenges, their use could be a great asset to saving the environment.
Now, how favourable the EVs will be will depend to a greater extent on the type of vehicle and the source of the electricity.
Some other reasons why EVs are gaining importance are,
- Studies have proven that EVs generate considerably lower emissions over their entire lifetime than conventional vehicles.
- Where electricity generation is coal-intensive, the advantages of EVs are minor but still very significant.
- As countries decarbonize electricity generation to meet their climate targets, driving emissions will further decrease for existing EVs. The manufacturing emissions will also reduce significantly for new EVs.