Sustainable Transportation Blog

Consumer electronics such as computers, cell phones and iPods have long followed a predictable economic arc: the first generation will be highly expensive and desired; early adopters will pay the hefty price; industry will make rapid improvements for subsequent generations, which will be cheaper; and eventually the product becomes mass-produced and affordable for a wide range of consumers.

The same thing may not be the case with electric and hybrid cars. The rapidly escalating demand for electrified motor vehicles may be driving the price beyond the reach of affordability. Mischa Popoff, writing in the Winnipeg Free Press, believes that the economics of battery technology are revealing hybrid cars are a costly mistake, because the batteries are so costly and the growing popularity of hybrids is only driving the cost of the raw materials up:

"A run-of-the-mill hybrid battery is currently triple the cost of a gasoline engine, about $8,000. Raw materials comprise 70 per cent of this cost. [T]he high-performance 2010 GM Volt hybrid['s] lithium battery costs a whopping $21,000. Let me stress, that's just for the battery at today's price for lithium."

For these reason, Shai Agassiz believes that the only to way to make electric cars viable is to separate the ownership of the cars and the batteries. His California-based company A Better Place is making a lot of headlines with its innovative and potentially game-changing approach to electric cars:

"To ensure that we can confidently drive an EV anytime, anywhere, Better Place is developing and deploying EV driver services, systems and infrastructure. Subscribers and guests will have access to a network of charge spots, switch stations and systems which optimize the driving experience and minimize environmental impact and cost."

The scheme involves a vast infrastructure of stations for swapping out the batteries. As the Globe and Mail reported recently,

"The business plan takes its inspiration from the mobile phone industry. As with cellphones, where most customers pay by the minute or buy fixed-rate plans, Better Place customers will pay by the mile driven or buy a fixed-rate plan that allows unlimited miles and battery swaps...Of course, the battery-swap concept requires a standardized battery pack and electric vehicle design. If every EV has a different design and battery, the robots won't be able to swap batteries efficiently...But this is not a small problem. Many in the auto industry do not believe that a critical mass of car makers will agree to design cars around one battery standard. Battery technology is advancing too quickly for the industry and individual companies to settle on a standardized battery design."

However, even if this problem were resolved, others argue that not even a total switch to electrified transportation systems will solve our problems. Lynn Sloman, writing in the Guardian, acknowledges that technological advances need to be a part of the transition to sustainability, but worries that an overdependence on this approach allows us to get ourselves "off the hook" in terms of our behaviour:

"The worry is that the government will focus on long-term technological solutions and do little to encourage short-term behaviour change. But trusting exclusively to future technology is the Superman solution. It's like ignoring the gently downward sloping footpath and hoping instead that at some point in the future you will be able to safely jump off a cliff to get down to sea level. The only trouble is, unlike Superman, we may be heading for a crash landing."

The tension here is between what is referred to as “weak” and “strong” sustainability. For adherents of “weak” or “technological” sustainable development, continued economic growth is considered essential, and indeed should be encouraged so as to raise living standards in developing nations. It also accepts that human beings as economic actors will not be able to control their habits as consumers. Therefore, unsustainability becomes a matter of more accurate pricing, better policies and sufficiently “green” technologies (like electric cars) to more effectively manage consumption.

“Strong” or “ecological” sustainable development, by contrast, rejects these assumptions. Far from being a matter of adjusting prices and policies within the existing system, it is the current paradigm associated with economic growth and development that is itself seen as the problem. Relying solely on the development of “green” technology will be at best an interim measure: a fleet of electric cars, for example, while less polluting in use would still require the consumption of vast resources to produce and generate undesirable social consequences in terms of urban form, quality of life, congestion and so on.

Here at the Centre for Sustainable Transportation, we see the electrification of the vehicle fleet as only one component of a much broader strategy. Electric cars – or plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) – will not on their own constitute a sustainable transportation system. Rather, we envision a strategy premised on a “Hierarchy of Modes”, with the priority placed on those with the greatest benefits to society with the least costs. At the top of the hierarchy then is no travel or E-work, followed by active transportation (cycling, walking etc.). Then the priority must be placed on mass transit, then carpooling. Only then can we see the potential for plug-in hybrids and other electric cars. Finally, we must do what we can to make conventional internal combustion vehicles as sustainable as possible for the duration of their usable lives.

There will be electric cars, but we cannot pretend that they will see the same phenomenon of mass ownership that the case for the car in the 20th Century. Our needs and more importantly our constraints -- from strained resources to strained economies -- will not likely allow us that fantasy again. But the electrification of the vehicle fleet does have a vital role to play within a wider, broader and most socially equitable strategy of sustainable transportation.