Many countries including the UK, Sweden, France, Norway and the Netherlands are phasing out combustion engine vehicles in favour of EV vehicles. Here in Aotearoa, while there isn’t any comparable government declarations (yet), demand for electric vehicles, bikes, scooters etc is growing. This episode explores how EVs compare to fossil fuel cars in environmental terms as well as in terms of price, user experience and convenience. It’s a broad analysis covering the ‘old favourite’ pros and cons of EVs, new technological advancements and a peek into what our near ‘EV future’ could look like.

Special thanks to Theo Gibson from NZ EV podcast, Robyn Parkinson, an EV salesperson; and Matthew - EV enthusiast, EV driver and investor – who all generously gave me their time.

Resources

• Lithium-ion battery recycling drop off in West Auckland: EcoMatters
• E World Expo: 6 - 8 May 2021, The Trusts Arena, Auckland
• EV NZ calculators and buyers guides
• Ecotricity Buyer's Guide
• Leading the Charge
• Flip the Fleet
• Robyn has kindly allowed us to share her EV buyers seminar ppt with you all, which is some of the clearest info I’ve seen overviewing the considerations (Google Slides)
• 2017 video on cobalt mines

Sources

Green House Gases

• NZ’s GHG emission sources
• EVs EECA Life Cycle Assessment of Electric Vehicles in Aotearoa (warning: PDF)
• EVs v Fossil cars stuff report

Lithium

• How does Lithium mining work, 2018
• McKinsey &; Company Lithium and Cobalt: A tale of two commodities, 2018

Cobalt

• Amnesty’s 2016 Cobalt Child Labour video
• Guardian’s 2020 update

Battery tech

• Tesla’s Battery Day announcement, 2020, YouTube

• Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.