Worries about the longevity of EV batteries are also unfounded. Only one percent of batteries manufactured since 2015 have had to be replaced (outside of manufacturing recalls, which have been negligible in recent years). Studies done by Tesla found the charging capacity in its sedans dropped just 15 percent after 200,000 miles.
Car companies continue to research ways to improve the life and capacity of EV batteries, the most important component in the car, says Micah Ziegler, who studies sustainable energy and public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
EV batteries evolved from the rechargeable lithium-ion technology pioneered in the 1990s for portable electronics. Updates over the years have reduced the need for environmentally damaging metals (including cobalt and nickel) and enhanced their energy density to allow for smaller, more powerful batteries. Future designs are expected to stretch their abilities further. Scientists are working on technologies that swap internal liquid electrolytes with a more stable solid materials, replace their lithium-ions with more readily available sodium, or use an innovative electrode from a single crystal that lasts millions of miles.
Myth #5 Renewables are on track to solve the climate crisis.
The world is in a better place than it would be without renewables. Before the 2015 Paris Agreement called for this energy transition, experts had forecast 4°C planetary warming by 2100; now they expect it to stay under 3°C, according to a recent report by World Weather Attribution, a climate research group. But even this target “would still lead to a dangerously hot planet,” the report states. Last summer Hawaiian observatories documented carbon dioxide concentrations above 430 parts per million—a record breaking high far above the 350 PPM Paris target.
To sufficiently slow climate warming, experts say wind generation must more than quadruple its current pace by 2030, and solar and other renewables must also be more widely adopted. Yet while global investments for renewable energy rose 10 percent in the first half of last year, it fell by more than a third in the U.S.