Challenges in EV adoption: high costs of batteries
Electric vehicles (EVs) remain more expensive than gasoline vehicles, making them largely unaffordable for low-income households.
While electric car and truck sales are increasing, they currently represent only a single-digit percentage of the total vehicle fleet.[1][2] Other forms of transportation, including planes, boats, and trains, have not yet begun to shift to electricity. CO2 emissions from the transport sector have not declined significantly in the US[2] or the EU[3].
For EVs to become more widely adopted, both the cost and performance of their batteries must improve significantly in the coming years, through technologies based on abundant materials, higher weight-to-range efficiency, faster charging, and improved recycling options.
EV charging should incorporate the use of solar panels
To fully decarbonize EV usage, vehicles must be recharged primarily through home and office charging, since the national grid is still far from fully green.
To reduce strain on the electrical grid and avoid delays associated with building new clean power plants, households and businesses can install charging options on their premises:
• Rooftop solar panels, combined with home batteries, to recharge vehicles at night.
• Spare vehicle batteries, recharged by local renewable-energy providers during the day and ready to replace depleted batteries.
• Solar and wind installations at commercial facilities to supply power to charging stations in parking lots for commuter vehicles.
Alternative clean fuels remain experimental
Clean fuels such as hydrogen, electrofuels, and biofuels have the potential to replace gasoline in transportation, but scaling up their production remains largely at the conceptual stage.
Alternative fuels could alleviate demand for EVs and be particularly valuable for aviation, where the weight of batteries is prohibitive. These fuels, however, face their own challenges:
• Hydrogen: When produced through electrolysis and compressed into liquid form, hydrogen becomes an expensive alternative fuel due to the large amount of energy required for compression.[1]
• Electrofuels: Designed to store energy in chemical bonds using captured CO2 as liquid substitutes for gasoline, electrofuels remain in an experimental phase, with production processes that are highly energy-intensive.[2]
• Biofuels: Derived from crops or algae, biofuels offer another pathway, although their production may compete with food resources. However, biofuels currently blended with gasoline, as in the United States, could potentially be redirected for use in aviation.