Those environmentally friendly electric vehicles

may not be as good as we are being led to believe. There are people who already think along those lines but I was given a little lesson in batteries yesterday.

Let me start by saying I do not own a car. I have never owned a car. I avoid travelling in them when I can. I use the pedal power of my paws where I can. 

The increasing number of electric vehicles on the road might be good for the environment - back to that in a moment - but one of them nearly ran me down yesterday. I was on the road instead of the footpath because there were two cars and a workman's van parked across the footpath After looking carefully behind me I  turned into the very short street I live in. There was nothing there at all, not even in the distance. I then had to do a right hand turn into the driveway of the house. I looked behind me again and found a silent black panther like vehicle was, at most, a metre behind me. That is far too close for comfort. On the dry surface of the road with the surrounding noise a car had been able to come up behind me almost silently after pulling out from the curb at the beginning of the street. 

The driver thought it was funny. I did not. It was a stupid, dangerous thing to do.

 This is one of the downsides of electric vehicles and I know there is talk of making some sort of noise emitter compulsory. Surely such a thing is essential, especially if people live somewhere prone to foggy days?

And then there is the issue of just how environmentally friendly these cars actually are. It was the batteries which were explained to me after one of the neighbours came to check I had not been frightened out of my wits. He and his partner were looking at electric vehicles. His partner is a very intelligent woman and she had been doing a little research.  I don't know if she is right or not but I'd be inclined to listen to her as her homework is usually thorough on other matters.  

The batteries for electric vehicles contain lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper. All of those things have to be mined, processed for transport, transported, then processed again. Along with graphite, aluminium, steel and plastic - which also require mining and processing - you finally get the battery. I wonder how much energy goes into this. I wonder what the actual environmental benefits are? I know there isn't an endless supply of any of these things. What happens when the lithium runs out? Is there something to replace it, or cobalt, or nickel?

It is no good saying "but solar power is renewable" - it isn't without the things that make the panels and....

I need to think about all this...because I am not sure we have the answers yet.