I will preface this by saying that I, in fact, do believe that reducing our reliance on fossil fuels is a good thing, and that the increasing market of electric vehicles is also a good thing overall for the planet.

But make no mistake, electric vehicles, which so many think are a miracle pill for lowering fossil fuel emissions are not quite the easy answer to solve climate change issues.

Adoption is slow.

A lot of people don’t realize this, but cars are… expensive, and electric vehicles are even more pricey. These are not prices where it makes sense for a person to snap one up on a whim. Even though there’s a record high interest in electric vehicles, a majority still are not considering buying one.

It’s clear that it’s going to take some time (and a lot of advertising) to convince most people to give EVs a chance. But even the best advertising can only do so much with these high prices. Cars overall took many decades to come into wide use, and I suspect electric vehicles are the same. According to one projection of electric vehicles in the United States by industry analysis IHS Markit, it will be 2035 before 42% of new cars sold will be electric, and 2050 by the time half the cars on the road are electric.

Let me rephrase that: In 2050, half the cars on the road will still burn fossil fuels. Does that sound like a solution to climate change, especially when we’re starting to see record heat waves right now in 2022? We simply can’t wait 20 or 30 years to see progress on reducing our transportation emissions especially when alternative solutions are so fast and cheap to implement , often being measured in years and not decades.

Don’t even get me started on the cost of manufacturing the batteries that go into these electric vehicles in the first place, which can be the most fossil fuel-emitting part of production. With Americans preference for larger and bigger trucks and SUVs, batteries are going to get even larger and heavier to compensate, making them worse for the environment. The calculus on EV vehicles is surprisingly bleak.

Now don’t get too discouraged. Battery technology and efficiency is sure to improve and as the grid electrifies, EVs will be able to become greener at every point in the future, from manufacturing, to driving and fueling.

But that concerted effort by multiple industries to help EVs to become greener is vastly different from the end-all be-all electric car as THE climate change solution.

So what do I say? See electric cars for what they are: a piece of the puzzle and a part of the solution to lower emissions, but they cannot and should not be seen as the one thing alone that will save the planet from impending climate change.