Cost of Electrification

1. The Costs ofElectrification Everything comes with a price. Most of the time, this price goes unnoticed. Electric mobility has been a common tabletop discussion, but when you look at it intricately, there is more to it than what meets the eye. The main intention here is to help consumers see from a rational standpoint and to help visualize the broader picture. It is not just about developing electric cars but about establishing a conducive ecosystem that advocates development in a sustainablemanner. Electric cars have always been compared with their traditional IC siblings in terms of emissions from the tailpipe, i.e. from running the vehicle. But this comparison is irrational. Considering a Well-to-Wheel analysis is important to see the bigger picture. Well-to-Wheel emissions are the upstream emissions that account for the energy used and emissions generated from the primary energy source (Well to Tank) through vehicle operation (Tank to Wheels). It discards the emissions from manufacturing, recycling, anddisposal. Electric vehicles depend primarily on their batteries. The battery is a USP for mostmanufacturerswhichisusedtolurecustomers.Withtheriseindemandof electric vehicles, the demand for batteries also rise proportionally, and thishas resulted in the increase in demand for raw materials which make abattery. Manufacturersstrivetohitthatsweetspottotacklerangeanxietyincustomers. They either offer high range (large capacity) or low range with quicker charging times, whilst pricing it competitively and at the sametime, Human costs – Electric vehicles have fewer components, which makes them easily manufacturable with less amount of workforce. With the advent of factory automationwhich will be a more plausible solution given the rising demand, lot of people are bound to lose their jobs to their robotic counterparts. Most of the extraction involved are via unethical means – child labor. Cobalt, which is another metal used to make up a battery is found abundantly in Congo where it is extracted from the ground by hand, often using child labor, without protectiveequipment.