by Hans Bader
“A recent study published by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids are twice as likely to hit pedestrians compared to those driving traditional gas-powered cars, potentially leading to more fatal accidents. This conclusion came from a review of British road accidents. The study examined 32 billion miles of EV travel and 3 trillion miles of combustion-engine car trips,” reports Straight Arrow News:
The findings align with earlier studies conducted by U.S. federal agencies. In 2017, the Department of Transportation reported that EVs and hybrids pose a 20% greater risk to pedestrians. This risk increases to 50% during low-speed maneuvers such as turning, reversing and coming to a stop.
Researchers partly attributed these elevated dangers posed by EVs and hybrids to the relative quietness of these vehicles. Unlike traditional combustion-engine cars, battery-powered automobiles produce little to no noise, sometimes leaving pedestrians unaware of an approaching vehicle….The heavier weight of EVs makes the problem worse. Electric cars often weigh 30% more than their gas-powered counterparts. This is because of their large batteries, which can add upwards of 2,000 pounds in some models. This added weight increases the likelihood of fatal outcomes in pedestrian accidents.…Being hit by a car with an additional 1,000 pounds of weight increases the chance of a fatality by nearly 50%.
Electric vehicles will also place a strain on transportation infrastructure. They are much heavier than gasoline-powered vehicles. As Axlewise explains, “The average EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds. Some batteries weigh more than 2,000 pounds. The heaviest EV battery is the Hummer EV battery, which weighs around 2,923 pounds.” A study found that electric vehicles place twice as much stress on roads as gas-powered vehicles. That means more cracks in the pavement. Last year, the Telegraph reported that the “sheer weight of electric vehicles could sink” some bridges in England.
An electric car requires “a ten-fold greater extraction and handling of materials from the earth, and far, far more acreage of land disturbed and, unfortunately, often polluted,” to manufacture the car and fuel it over a ten-year period, than a gasoline-powered car does; “the mines operating and planned can’t supply even a small fraction of the 400% to 7000% increase in demand for minerals that will be needed within a decade to meet” the electric-vehicle mandates imposed by the Biden administration, which will require half of all new cars to be electric by 2030. “What’s relevant is that the IEA [International Energy Agency] has told us we’ll need hundreds of new mega-mines, and that it takes 10 to 16 years to find, plan and open a new mine.”
This is not the only downside of electric vehicles. “Electric vehicles release more toxic particles into the atmosphere and are worse for the environment than their gas-powered counterparts,” according to a study described in the New York Post.
Electric vehicles require enormous damage to the environment just to produce their batteries — 250 tons of mined materials are required for a single battery, according to Real Clear Energy. Switching to electric cars would require a radical expansion of mining across the world, and the minerals for the car batteries will be refined mainly using the coal-powered electric grid of China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Yet a growing number of states are mandating electric vehicles. Nine states, including California, have now decided to ban gasoline-powered cars by 2035, requiring that all cars sold be electric instead. In 2021, Virginia’s Democrat-controlled legislature passed a law adopting California standards for Virginia vehicles, so Virginia also will ban gasoline-powered cars in 2035, unless that law is repealed, as Republicans have unsuccessfully sought to do (the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates voted to repeal the ban on gas-powered cars in 2023, but the Democrat-controlled Virginia state Senate kept the ban in place, and Democrats regained control of the Virginia House of Delegates in the 2023 election).
Hans Bader is an attorney practicing in Washington, D.C.
Republished with permission from Liberty Unyielding,
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