does hybrid car production waste offset hybrid benefits? - lithium battery pack
The pollution caused by the manufacture of hybrid cars is almost exactly the same as the manufacture of traditional cars, which requires high
Technology and highly automated assembly lines.
This type of manufacturing process requires a lot of energy input, especially the forging of materials such as steel, aluminum, glass and plastic.
Interestingly, light cars are sometimes more energy efficient.
Manufacturing is more intensive than heavy duty cars, because light metals like aluminum are harder to forge than stainless steel [source: Moon].
Experts estimate that in the manufacturing phase alone, 10-20% of the total life-span greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles are released [
Source: California Energy Council.
Toyota acknowledged that its light Prius production requires more energy and emits more carbon dioxide than its natural gas production. only models [
Source: Williams.
The main reason is that hybrids like Prius include more advanced components than conventional cars, including a second motor and a heavy-duty battery pack.
Batteries are an important part of hybrid cars.
Regenerative braking allows hybrid vehicles to generate and store their own energy at low speed and idle speed to power the vehicle.
Unfortunately, two Nickel
Hydrogen cells and newer lithium-
Ion Batteries depend on the mining of nickel, copper and other metals
Called rare earth metal
Production of lithium-
Ion batteries account for 2-5% of total life mixed emissions and nickel-
Sulfur oxide emissions are high, about 22 pounds (10 kilograms)
Ratio of 2 per mix. 2 pounds (
About 1 kg)
For traditional vehicles [
Source: Samaras and Burnham et al. .
Other environmental issues related to these rare earth metals, such as rare earth metals used in hybrid battery magnets.
Rare earth metals like lithium have been imported almost entirely from China in recent years, and China has been able to lower prices enough to monopolize the industry [
Source: Strickland.
One of the reasons why China can sell lithium so cheaply is that China generally ignores environmental protection during mining.
For example, in the baiyunebo area of China, miners cleared the surface soil and extracted gold.
Use the acid that enters the groundwater to corrosion the metal and destroy the nearby farmland.
Even the usual tension
The Chinese government has admitted that rare earth mining has been abused in some places.
A supervisor at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China even told the New York Times that "this has caused great harm to ecology and the environment "[
Source: Bradsher].
Even though the production of hybrid cars is more energy efficient
Hybrid cars are an intensive vehicle that leads to higher production emissions.
Read more about mixed life emissions on the next page.