As electric cars become less costly and able to cover greater distances per single charge, consumers more and more tend to view them as a potentially preferable alternative to the traditional gasoline-powered automobiles. Electric vehicles seem to perform better on several crucial indicators, such as maintenance costs, environmental impact, and their effect on public health. However, it is also necessary to take other aspects into account to draw meaningful comparisons between the electric and gasoline-powered automobiles. While electric cars have several positive societal impacts, some of these will likely be tempered by the planned obsolescence, and the limited distance per one charge is likely to limit their use in rural areas.
Electric vehicles are expected to have a positive impact on society in several aspects simultaneously. To begin with, they do not need to burn fossil fuels to operate, and, as a result, leave a smaller carbon footprint than their gasoline-powered counterparts (Malmgren 989). Apart from the environmental impact, one may also expect electric cars to be more beneficial to public health. Fine particle pollution inherent in the exhaust of internal combustion engines has numerous adverse health effects, such as cardiovascular and respiratory harm, cancer, and even early death (Malmgren 989-990). Additionally, electric cars should also have a positive effect on national security in terms of gasoline consumption. According to Malmgren, choosing an electric car over a gasoline-powered one saves up to 344 gallons of fuel per year, leaving it available for other uses (990). By doing so, electric cars reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. Finally, maintenance costs for electric cars are lower than those for the gasoline-powered ones, suggesting that society will also benefit economically from using them (Malmgren 988). Considering these estimations, electric cars seem to have many positive societal impacts.
However, the positive impact of the electric automobiles on the economy in terms of the maintenance costs is likely overstated. The logic of the assumption is fairly straightforward: the less money people spend on maintenance, the more they have for other productive uses, thus benefitting society as a whole. However, Malmgren’s account of this societal impact is solely based on the cars’ technical features and does not take into account the business component of the situation. As noted by Hanke et al., the management of the firms producing cars is under pressure to create “payable sustainable mobility,” and “payable” is at least as important as “sustainable” in this scheme (17). Even though electric cars do not need oil changes or spark plugs and wires, producing goods that have a long life cycle and next to no maintenance requirements is unprofitable. With this in mind, one may expect that the producers will compensate for reduced maintenance via planned obsolescence, such as contrived durability and repair prevention. Thus, the positive impact of electric cars on the consumer’s spending is likely overstated.
There is one more downside to Malmgren’s economic analysis comparing the costs of operating and maintaining an electric or gasoline-powered car. The author accounts for fuel consumption and maintenance alike, successfully demonstrating that electric cars are advantageous in both aspects and yield thousands of dollars’ worth of savings during their life cycle (Malmgren 988-989). However, while assessing these costs, he omits another important one. Newnan et al. point out that, when selecting a machine, the consumer should consider not only the annual energy worth and other operating costs but also the initial costs (230). This is precisely the aspect that Malmgren largely fails to address: the author compares Nissan Leaf and Honda Civic as popular vehicles “comparable in size and function” rather than the options with equivalent initial costs (987). As a result, the article investigates the maintenance and operating costs of the vehicles under scrutiny with sufficient thoroughness but pays little attention to the initial costs of procuring them. The lack of attention to this factor is an evident downside of Malmgren’s economic analysis.
Another aspect of operating an electric vehicle as opposed to the gasoline-powered one is their limited range per one charge. It is also the single most important treason why electric cars remain largely confined to urban and suburban communities and are less represented in rural areas. Contemporary electric cars have a relatively small range per one charge as compared to the gasoline-powered cars per one fill, which imposes corresponding requirements upon the public charging infrastructure (Gunn 2). As the areas with much higher population density, urban and suburban communities naturally surpass the rural areas in the development of said infrastructure, thus making electric vehicles less applicable beyond cities and towns. The logical way to overcome this limitation is to improve battery technology, extending the range of the electric cars, putting downward pressure on prices, and decreasing the required density of the charging infrastructure (Gunn 2). With the range of the electric vehicles increased to several hundred miles per charge, the barrier currently preventing their wider usage in rural areas will lose its importance, although it is unlikely to disappear entirely.
As one can see, for all the advantages of the electric vehicles over their gasoline-powered counterparts, they do not fare equally well in all aspects. They have numerous positive societal impacts, but the producers will likely compensate for lower maintenance costs via planned obsolescence. This fact, as well as the initial costs and range per charge, underscore the otherwise impressive advantages of the electric cars.
Works Cited
Gunn, Taylor. “EVs and EDs: Rural Electric Coops to Benefit from Late Adoption of Electric Vehicles.” CoBANK, 2017. Web.
Hanke, Christian, et al. “Socio-Economic Aspects of Electric Vehicles: A Literature Review.” Evolutionary Paths Towards the Mobility Patterns of the Future, edited by Michael Hülsmann and Dick Fornahl, Springer, 2014, pp. 13-36.
Malmgren, Ingrid. “Quantifying the Societal Benefits of Electric Vehicles.” World Electric Vehicle Journal, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 986-997.
Newnan, Donald G., et al. Engineering Economic Analysis. 13th ed., Oxford UP, 2017.