EVs Are the Future. But the Industry Has a Dirty Secret It Can't Ignore.

The case for electric vehicles is compelling: reduced tailpipe emissions, lower operating costs, energy independence, and a meaningful contribution to decarbonization goals. Governments worldwide have set ambitious EV mandates. Automakers have pledged hundreds of billions in electrification investment. The transition is underway.

But as Matthew Groch, Senior Director at the environmental advocacy organization Mighty Earth, told the Driving Mobility podcast: the EV industry, as currently structured, is not clean. And the faster it grows without confronting that, the worse the problem becomes.

The Numbers That Don't Make the Headlines

In 2020, fewer than 600,000 electric vehicles were manufactured globally. By 2024, that number had grown to nearly 16 million. The scale of growth is extraordinary and that scale is precisely what makes the industry's supply chain issues so urgent.

Building an EV currently generates 30% to 50% more carbon emissions than building an equivalent internal combustion engine vehicle. That gap narrows over a vehicle's lifetime as EV operating emissions are lower but it doesn't disappear, and at 16 million units per year, the manufacturing footprint is enormous.

Beyond carbon, there are two other supply chain issues that Groch argues the industry can no longer treat as someone else's problem.

The Mining Problem

The batteries that power EVs depend on minerals lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, and others that have to come from somewhere. Where they come from, and how they're extracted, matters enormously.

Mining operations for EV battery materials have been linked to deforestation in critical ecosystems, displacement of indigenous communities, environmental contamination of waterways, and labor conditions that fall far short of acceptable standards.

This isn't hypothetical or marginal. It's happening at scale, in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, and parts of South America regions that supply a significant portion of the minerals the global EV industry depends on.

As EV production scales to meet global demand, so does the pressure on those mining operations. The emissions saved at the tailpipe can be partially or fully offset by the environmental damage caused upstream a reality that undermines the fundamental value proposition of the technology.

The Deforestation Connection

One of the most overlooked dimensions of the EV supply chain is its connection to deforestation. Mining expansion in tropical and subtropical regions has resulted in forest clearing to access mineral deposits destroying carbon sinks that took centuries to develop.

Mighty Earth's work focuses precisely on this intersection: mapping the supply chains of major industries and identifying where deforestation and environmental destruction are occurring as a consequence of production decisions made thousands of miles away.

For the EV industry, the message is uncomfortable but clear: you cannot market an electric vehicle as a climate solution if its supply chain is contributing to deforestation and ecosystem destruction.

What Responsible Scaling Looks Like

Groch's argument isn't that EVs are bad or that electrification should slow down. Quite the opposite the urgency of climate change makes getting this right more important, not less. The goal is to scale the EV industry in a way that doesn't replicate or amplify the environmental harms it's meant to address.

That requires several things happening simultaneously:

Supply chain transparency. Automakers and battery manufacturers need to know with specificity where their minerals are coming from and under what conditions. Many currently don't. That has to change.

Responsible sourcing standards. The industry needs binding standards for what constitutes acceptable mining practice, with real consequences for suppliers who don't meet them. Voluntary commitments without enforcement mechanisms have not worked.

Investment in recycling and circularity. Every battery that can be recycled at end of life reduces the demand for newly mined materials. Battery recycling technology and infrastructure are advancing, but investment needs to accelerate significantly.

Support for community rights. Indigenous and local communities affected by mining operations need legal protections and genuine consultation rights, not token engagement that results in displacement regardless.

Why Addressing This Now Matters

The EV industry is at a scale inflection point. The decisions made in the next few years about supply chain standards, sourcing requirements, and responsible expansion will shape the industry's environmental footprint for decades.

Cleaning up a supply chain after the fact is exponentially harder than building it responsibly from the start. The companies and policymakers who act now have the opportunity to define what a truly sustainable EV industry looks like. Those who wait will spend years trying to remediate damage they could have prevented.

Listen to the full episode of the Driving Mobility podcast to hear Matthew Groch's complete assessment of the EV supply chain's environmental challenges and what it will realistically take to address them.

Driving Mobility is ParkMyFleet's podcast covering the trends, technologies, and leaders shaping the future of mobility.