It's a good decision, or the opposite, as the whole opposition argues, all-electricity will make things worse from an ecological point of view, while at the same time being ruinous for the states’ economy? It seems hard to believe. It's even absurd: we've always been told that there's "nothing worse than oil" and that we're "going electric" because it guarantees less pollution. But a number of scientists have recently analysed the manufacture of an electric car battery in detail. What are these claims based on?

1-. Battery manufacture emits twice as much CO2, which is responsible for global warming.

Manufacturing a battery and then an electric vehicle generates twice as many CO2 emissions as manufacturing a combustion engine vehicle. All the experts in favour of electric cars know this and say so.

2-. To manufacture batteries, rare and highly polluting metals have to be extracted. Car batteries, like those in the Tesla Model S, contain 16 kg of nickel, 15 kg of lithium, 10 kg of cobalt. These heavy, toxic metals leave behind colossal mountains of waste, which manufacturers dump into the sea or pollute the soil and air.

Inhaling these nickel and lithium dusts poses acute risks of intoxication, leading to pulmonary fibrosis and lung cancer, ear, nose and throat problems, and countless skin problems.

And it's a disaster for the environment too:

- Lithium pumped from under the Andes plateaus dries up water sources, which is an agricultural and human disaster for Bolivian and Chilean farmers.

- Much of the Congo's cobalt is extracted by children digging with their bare hands in small-scale mines for just $2 a day. This is unacceptable and will get worse as demand increases.

3-. Recharging these batteries requires an enormous amount of electricity... which will be expensive and have an impact on the environment.

In France, for example, the electricity needed to recharge the batteries of 38 million electric cars will be an extra 98 terawatts per year. That's a huge amount. To meet this demand, France will have to increase its electricity production by 20%. Limited by its ageing nuclear fleet, France will not be able to do this.

It will therefore have to import very expensive electricity, which will add to the bills of the French people. What's more, 63% of this imported electricity will come from fossil fuels: coal, gas and oil. So, are we preparing to increase consumption of polluting electricity... in order to run fewer polluting vehicles?

4-. There are no plans to recycle electric batteries after use.

Electric car batteries run down just as much as telephone batteries. They have to be replaced after 5 to 8 years. That's why carmakers currently guarantee batteries for only 160,000 km.

Replacing them will be a huge hidden cost for buyers, but it also represents uncontrolled pollution risks: tens of millions of lithium batteries will soon be on the waste market, with no recycling solution as yet.

5- Electric cars will require the installation of thousands of expensive and ugly charging points.

From 2035 onwards, we will no longer be able to register new combustion-powered vehicles, but those sold before that date will be able to continue on the road. People will have to buy an electric car at a much higher price. The government will use taxpayers' money to build tens of thousands of charging points.

How much will this gigantic infrastructure cost? What materials will be used? What carbon footprint will it leave? How much will it cost to maintain each year? Have we had any information about this financial impact? Only one thing is certain: it is the citizen who will pay.

6-. There's also the new bodywork, which will accelerate aluminium pollution.

Manufacturers need to make electric vehicles as light as possible, because the batteries are extremely heavy (1/4 the weight of the Tesla Model S). To achieve this, they prefer bodywork made from aluminium, a metal whose extraction (bauxite and cryolite) generates insoluble waste resulting from treatment with soda and which is composed of several heavy metals such as arsenic, iron, mercury, silica and titanium.

See, Voiture électrique : STOP avant le désastre ! Voir aussi Quelle est l’empreinte carbone d’une voiture thermique vs électrique ? and La voiture électrique cause une énorme pollution minière