There’s a post making the rounds on social media about how terrible Tesla EV batteries are and listing reasons why we EV drivers shouldn’t feel so high and mighty relative to drivers of polluting gasmobiles. It’s been around before and will be around again that you can be sure of.
Normally, I try to keep my head down and get my work done. I try not to pay attention to the latest “this new wind turbine will save the world” scam, or the latest flimflammery from nuclear and fossil-fuel lobbyists. (Hey, I live in Bakersfield, California. I get oil industry flyers in the mail. Yes, the mail, physical full color brochures. They spare no expense to keep me informed.)
Then on occasion there’s something so over the top I have to step in. Or, more likely, a friend contacts me and says, “What do you think of this?” (See Weight of EVs Will Crush the World—Not or Latest Anti-Wind Myths Circulating on the Internet: Clean Green Hoax & Blade Waste Filling up Landfills.) And that’s what happened here.
The current version of the post—I haven’t located the original source—suggests it’s from a Dr. Sharnael Wolverton Sehon on Instagram. (And no, I am not going to spend a lot of time on this trying to find the original author.) Google the author and this is what you find: Naturopathic Doctor, Speaker, Author, Social Media Influencer and Teacher on Divine Health. You can buy “Books & Crystals Card Deck Set” for only $34.99 from her web site.
Hmmm. Alarm bells should go off immediately. She doesn’t sound like an authority on batteries, lithium or otherwise. I could find no evidence that she actually wrote this, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she did.
However, I am shocked; shocked I tell you that some of the misleading data in this post is from the American Petroleum Institute.
So a quick search of some debunking sites turned up a few hits.
- Posts mislead about environmental impact of electric cars
- Instagram post misleads about lithium mining and Tesla cars
- Factcheck: 21 misleading myths about electric vehicles
- Snopes: Are Electric Vehicles and Batteries Bad for the Environment? We broke the viral Facebook post down claim by claim.
- Verify: Fact-checking claims about electric vehicles and their carbon footprint
- Factcheck.org Electric Vehicles Contribute Fewer Emissions Than Gasoline-Powered Cars Over Their Lifetimes
I particularly enjoyed some Selected tid bits from a Reddit entry on this post.
“This shitpost has been circulated on Facebook for a long time. There is no way to fix stupid. Stupid people trust random Facebook posts more than credible sources.”
“This looks like a grab bag of crap thrown up by someone who is either an oil lobbyist or deep down the oil rabbit hole.
Manufacturing anything involves pollution, including ICE cars, and usually involves building components in unsavory places. Yet I don’t see a comparison here. I also don’t see any discussion of lifetime CO2 emissions, which gives the game away. No one argues that building an EV is pollution-free. But some forms of pollution are less bad than others, and from that standpoint ICE vehicles are unquestionably worse, since CO2 pollution poses an existential threat to humanity. The post seems intended to appeal to people who don’t have the critical thinking skills to understand that there can be a worse option between two “bad” things.”
Ok. Just as I suspected: A well-crafted appeal to those without critical thinking skills.
To finish off, here’s a few posts from my own web site on the general topic are EVs good or bad.
- Why We Drive Electric: They’re More Efficient
- Why We Drive Electric: No Tail-Pipe Emissions
- Why We Drive Electric: Much Fewer Overall Emissions
- EVs Cause Cancer Meme
- EVs are Clearly Cleaner, Quieter, and More Fun than Fossil Fueled Vehicles
- Electric cars are better for the climate than petrol or diesel
- Electric vehicles use half the energy of gas-powered vehicles
- Do electric cars really produce fewer carbon emissions than petrol or diesel vehicles?
- How problematic is mineral mining for electric cars?
And if that’s not enough, I highly recommend a British web site Stop Burning Stuff by Robert Llewllyn and Quentin Willson that was created just to debunk this kind of crud.
