Just How Bad Is EV Manufacturing For The Environment?

Things are only getting hotter in the political furnaces as we get closer to election day. Despite former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump giving some concessions to Elon Musk in exchange for his endorsement, EVs are more of a hot-button issue than ever. 

If anything, the misinformation campaigns out there are accelerating, so we will keep doing our part by digging into what’s real and what’s not.

Last month, we dug deep into the CO2 impact of driving EVs vs. cars with traditional internal combustion engines. We showed quite comprehensively that, even if you factor in the CO2 output from battery production, driving EVs more than make up the difference. Even if you live somewhere that uses coal to generate electricity, EVs output less CO2 than cars that burn gasoline or diesel. They are already a better, cleaner option than burning gas and creating tailpipe emissions—that’s an indisputable fact.

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This month we’re picking up that thread and looking into the other environmental implications of EVs (and, by extension, hybrids). Specifically, we’ll delve into the sourcing of many of the more problematic materials used in battery and electric motor production. 

Fair warning: The results for this one won’t be quite so rosy, but we’re not here to sugar-coat the truth. We’re here to find it—along with the reasons to be optimistic as well about how what’s next can be better than the fossil-fuel economy that has caused misery of its own.

Battery Materials

The majority of batteries found in EVs these days use a lithium-ion construction. That gives the impression that they’re all homogenous in terms of their composition. In reality, you’ll find endless variation in material composition within the cells tucked in the modules that make up the batteries that make an EV go.

Still, there are a few common materials used to create modern batteries:

• Lithium: This element gives lithium-ion batteries its name. Australia is the world’s leading producer, but Chile comes in second, where the Lithium mining industry has created what the Natural Resources Defense Council termed a “water crisis.”
• Cobalt: Used to increase a battery’s energy density and stability. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the world’s leading producer, where the mining has led to “grievous human rights abuses,” according to Amnesty International.
• Nickel: Used to increase a battery’s energy density. Indonesia is the world’s largest exporter, according to the United States International Trade Commission. The industry has been accused of causing mass deforestation, increasing soil erosion, and water pollution.

Basically, it’s resource extraction; it’s not a pretty thing. We get oil from undersea drilling, fracking and from countries mired in—or behind—conflict all over the world. As we’ll cover in a bit, there’s more of a path for true sustainability with EVs that don’t exist in the fossil-fuel sector, but we’re only now starting to walk it.

Rare Earth Materials

If you think the sourcing of batteries is a little uncomfortable, this one’s going to be even heavier.

The electric motors used in EVs and hybrids again vary widely in their construction and technology, but generally, permanent-magnet synchronous motors are considered the most advanced. They offer more efficiency and performance than induction motors.

Those magnets rely on a few key elements, like neodymium and dysprosium. Those are all part of a family of elements called rare earths, including some troubling byproduct elements like uranium.

The rarity of these elements and their relative value has resulted in some extremely unsavory techniques used to extract the stuff. In Myanmar, one of the world’s leading sources, whole villages have been wiped off the map by mining operations, with the former inhabitants bullied into submission. 

It’s a disturbing reality you can read more about at Global Witness.

Signs of Hope

The troubling facts above are the darkest aspect of EV and hybrid production, a topic that many manufacturers are understandably quiet about. 

But there is reason for hope.

Rare earths are generally held to be the most troubling component of EV production, but there are signs of improvement, starting with new, safer sources for rare earths. “China is the biggest producer and the major player in the market,” Neha Mukherjee told me. She’s a senior analyst for rare earths at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. It’s her job to watch trends in the global market. “However, we are seeing sources of supply coming up, especially in the United States and Australia.”

Mukherjee mentioned Elk Creek in Nebraska, plus the Bear Lodge and Halleck Creek projects in Wyoming, as being particularly promising domestic sources for these materials.

New sources in Africa, Australia, and North America have the potential to be leading global producers while offering far better environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices than many current mines. 

“Less than 1% of the dysprosium supply that is all coming from Myanmar is ESG compliant, which is concerning,” she said. “We definitely need more government support, which they’re already doing in terms of policies and in terms of capital support and operational expenditure support as well.” 

With that support, Mukherjee says that some of these domestic supplies could be online as soon as 2027. 

What’s even better than environmentally conscious sources for rare earths? How about not needing them? Plenty of companies are working on high-efficiency motors that don’t use rare earths, including Tesla. However, we’re still waiting to see that vaunted motor take shape.

Since sourcing many of the materials used in batteries and motors can be a little iffy at times, some manufacturers would prefer you didn’t know where they’re sourcing this stuff. Thankfully, that’s changing.

Battery passports will make it abundantly clear what materials are used in the manufacturing of the battery, and where they’ve been sourced. Volvo is one leader in battery passports, starting with the long-awaited EX90 SUV. Tesla’s Cybertruck also includes battery passports.

These passports not only identify the pack’s sourcing, but also specify its construction type and the nature of cells within, which will make eventual recycling easier.

When it comes to recycling, companies like Redwood Materials are putting the frameworks in place to create what someday might be a circular economy for these troubling materials—in other words, building an ecosystem where we need to extract far less of them for new cars and with such a far less horrific human toll.

Ultimately, the materials that are so valuable when coming out of the ground are just as valuable when coming out of a wrecked or tired EV. In fact, they’re potentially even more valuable, because instead of having to extract them from the earth, they’re all right there in a convenient package, just waiting to be renewed.

Redwood, in particular, is making waves, raising billions in investments while expanding its facility in Nevada and building a new one in South Carolina. Founded by former Tesla Chief Technical Officer and pioneering battery engineer J.B. Straubel, the company has contracts with many major manufacturers to not only accept batteries for recycling but to provide renewed materials for battery production.

Redwood recently began construction of its first facility to create recycled cathode materials, which will be used by the American battery factories from Panasonic and Toyota starting next year. 

It’ll be a long time—decades, maybe—until we can realistically think about creating a circular economy. We still have a lot of raw materials to get out of the ground to get that economy moving. But, once we hit a critical number of electrified vehicles on the road, a significant percentage of new batteries and motors can be made by the leavings of the old cars. Those batteries can even be repurposed for new energy storage units to power homes and buildings if they aren’t suitable for car duty. Besides collecting scrap metal, or maybe repairing a junked engine, that’s just not something that can happen with gas-powered cars.

And it’s not something that will ever happen if we keep burning oil. 

I know. All of the above is a little hard to process. Considering the clear and disturbing nature of the sourcing of many of the materials used in the production of EVs and hybrids, I think it’s important to remember that this is a relatively new industry. EVs have only been mainstream for a decade. Just like the systems needed to make batteries, setting up a recycling infrastructure will take time.

That doesn’t excuse these issues. Far from it.

But context is important. Look at the global petrochemical economy, which has been going strong for over 100 years. Despite endless regulations and protections, that industry does incalculable harm to the environment every day. That’s on top of a century of geopolitical strife caused by black gold.

What’s happening in Myanmar is a tragedy, but the industry is moving towards better sourcing for these materials, many coming online in just a few years. Meanwhile, there’s nothing stopping Deepwater Horizon from happening again, and little hope that another 100 years of oil drilling will improve the nature of that industry in the least.

If we commit to getting a clean, circular battery economy right, we may just get to the point where we have such horrific tradeoffs for our energy needs.

Tim Stevens is a veteran editor, analyst, and expert in the tech and automotive industries. He helmed CNET’s automotive coverage for nine years and acted as Vice President of Content. Prior to that, Tim served as Editor-in-Chief at Engadget and even led a previous life as an Enterprise Software Architect. Follow Tim on Twitter at @tim_stevens and catch his Substack.