When you ask someone- what is the best way to curb air pollution? Their first answer will be to Use electric vehicles. For most of us electric cars and scooters are a one-stop solution for pollution eradication. However, this is far from the truth.
Even our environment and budget-friendly electric vehicles have many disadvantages that can have an adverse effect on our environment. They have the potential to harm us significantly – Fortunately, a startup named “Chara” from Bengaluru took this fact seriously and built EV motors free of toxic earth rare metals.
What are these toxic earth rare metals and how can they harm us? To know more, keep yourself hooked on till the end of this blog.
The rare earth metals comprise a group of 17 elements that include 15 lanthanides – lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium. The other two metals are Scandium and yttrium. Although these elements are found in small concentrations, they are used in a wide range of products, be they consumer electronics or medical devices.
These rare metals are highly reactive and are capable of forming compounds that are quite harmful to human health. Not to forget, they can get released into the environment through activities like mining and industrial processes ultimately leading to the contamination of soil and water. Damaged DNA, detrimental effects on cancer cells, and cell death are common repercussions of these earth metals.
Dysprosium and Neodymium are among the most widely used rare metals in Electric vehicles. Among these two, Dysprosium is utilized more in permanent magnetic motors in comparison to the other one. And the main reason behind using these rare metals in electric cars is that they offer a high level of magnetic performance in a much smaller size and weight than magnets made with other technologies.
Chara is an advanced cloud-based platform for switched reluctance motors and other magnet-free technologies. The start-up is known as highly scalable with a restriction on the usage of rare earth metals. Recently, the company has proved its credibility with its discovery- the introduction of an EV battery without rare earth metals.
Indeed, the revelation is good news for nature enthusiasts and electric vehicle owners due to the following reasons
1. Controlled pollution – The procedures of extracting rare earth metals are damaging to the environment. No use of earth metals means no requirement for mining them. This means with reducing the need for metal, we can decrease their environmental footprint to a large extent.
2. Low expenditure for EV owners – Everything that is rare is also costly. The same logic applies to the mining of these metals. The cost of electric vehicles will automatically reduce the moment we stop using these costly materials (rare earth metals) in the vehicle. This in turn reduces the overall cost for the EV owners.
3. Increased efficiency – If the use of rare metals is reduced, the companies can certainly make lighter vehicles that will not be only more efficient but also easy to operate for the new drivers
4. Reduced corrosion- The highly reactive nature of these metals can lead to their corrosion, especially when exposed to air or moisture. Hence, reducing their use is important for increasing reliability.
The new invention by Chara is nothing less than a boon for those looking for a better tomorrow. Be it making the environment ten times safer, reducing the cost of production, or decreasing the reliance on foreign suppliers, the benefits of the initiative will be observed very soon. Additionally, we can anticipate that electric vehicles will become more accessible to the general public due to their lower cost and increased usability.
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