Battery Power

Anyone who owns a smartphone will know that the older it gets, the more time it spends plugged into the mains, charging. The same holds true for the plethora of portable electronic devices that we own, like tablets, fitness trackers, wireless headphones, and the like.

 

Our urge to replace some devices is now probably driven more by the fact that the battery life has plummeted rather than because an improved device has come on the market. All smartphone manufacturers release new models regularly, yet it seems that the improvements are marginal. I have had my Samsung Galaxy S7 for nearly four years, but have little desire to replace it since so far as I can tell, subsequent models have little or no better or advanced functionality.

 

What would prompt me to replace my relatively old phone would be an improvement in battery life, but with even new phones now somewhat unambitiously advertised as having an ‘all day battery,’ I am disinclined to shell out several hundred pounds for a new device as my now relatively elderly device still manages to last all day under normal usage.

 

The makers of smartphone batteries reckon that on average, a battery has a lifespan of 300-500 charging cycles, so that’s probably less than two years. And even if they could increase the lifespan, it isn’t really in their interest, which is exactly what lightbulb manufacturers did with their product a century ago.

 

Back in the 1920s, lightbulb manufacturers like Philips, General Electric, and Osram formed an alliance – the Phoebus cartel – as a result of technological advances that significantly increased the life of lightbulbs. Faced with longer lasting bulbs that needed replacing less frequently, thereby reducing sales and profits, the cartel actively reduced the life of bulbs (the industry standard of 2,500 hours in 1924 fell to 1,000 by 1940), and made them more fragile.

 

While I now find myself having to charge my phone daily, I have also noticed a more frequent need to charge my tablet and my Fitbit, which used to last at least five days between charges, but now seems to have to be plugged in every three days. Even my trusty Kindle, which would go for a month between charges when I first got it, now needs charging more frequently.

 

Having so many devices that need to be charged so frequently makes me grateful for the fact that, unlike the 1970s when they were a fact of life, power cuts are now few, far between, and usually short-lived (I’ve jinxed that now, haven’t I?) But, even if my smartphone runs out of juice, or my Fitbit expires, or my tablet gives up the ghost, all through lack of power, I am marginally inconvenienced at worst, but the life of a battery in an electric car is something different.

 

In just ten years time, in 2030, it will not be possible to buy a new car or van powered solely by petrol or diesel in the UK, with the sale of new hybrid models allowed only until 2035. Even though existing petrol/diesel vehicles will still be allowed on the roads, a shift to all-electric for new cars in ten years is mightily ambitious, especially when one considers that only 1% of the cars currently on Britain’s roads are powered solely by electricity.

 

Aside from the issue of the number of miles an all-electric car can travel on one charge, and the time it takes to fully charge these vehicles, I also foresee an issue with home charging. For home owners like me, with a driveway, I would not have a problem charging an electric car from my domestic supply, but there are many car owners who can’t even park directly outside their property, far less on a drive. A colossal effort is going to be required to provide the infrastructure to enable 32.7 million drivers in this country to charge their vehicles.

A vast investment will be required to provide Britain with enough fast
charging points if the electic car is to fully replace petrol driven vehicles

I cannot help thinking that the headlong rush to switch to all-electric vehicles, together with our insatiable demand for new gadgets that rely on rechargeable batteries is simply swapping one set of problems for another, as this tweet eloquently demonstrates.

 

And aside from the heavy industry necessary to mine the elements required for these batteries, and the collateral human damage caused by the slavery that the mining industry relies upon, there are other factors. Yes, electric cars won’t pollute our streets, but unless the electricity that charges them comes from renewable, sustainable, non-polluting sources, we are simply shifting the damage to the environment from one location to another.

 

Again, there is the issue of battery life, which is even more significant in a car costing perhaps £28,000, which is the current list price for an all-electric Nissan Leaf (a petrol driven Nissan Micra costs about £15,000 on the road). As we know from our smartphones, sooner or later the battery life renders the device unusable, and so it will with electric cars. The ingredients of its battery means that an old smartphone can’t be thrown out with the rest of the rubbish, and electric cars will have to have their batteries safely disposed of, whether they are replaced or if the whole vehicle is scrapped. This will not be cheap, and for that matter, what is the resale value of an electric car that is otherwise in good condition, but which has batteries that have a much reduced range?

 

The Government’s plan to phase out the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles is part of a ten-point plan for a ‘green industrial revolution’ that includes investing in renewable or clean power sources, making homes more power efficient and less polluting (including an ambition that by 2025, no new homes will be connected to the gas grid, with gas central heating replaced by heat pumps, electric boilers, or solar heating systems).

 

Also part of the plan is a desire to make cycling and walking more attractive ways to travel, and to make public transport emission free. This is where the Government’s plan is probably not ambitious enough. Switching from petrol to electric cars merely swaps one problem for another, a truly green industrial revolution would be predicated on removing our reliance on the private car completely. We now live in a society in which the motor car is so completely embedded, for practical reasons and for convenience, that weaning the majority of us off them – even simply converting us to electric vehicles – will require a Herculean effort, which together with this Government’s propensity to perform U-turns, makes me think that their 2030 target to go all-electric may come and go without sales of petrol vehicles being completely wiped out.