Ford Lightning EV Hides A Dirty Amazon Secret
It turns out the all-electric pickup truck isn’t so green after all.
Even if you don’t pay close attention to the auto industry, you likely have been targeting to some degree by a massive marketing push for the Ford F-150 Lightning. The first all-electric version of Ford’s full-size truck is a key product for getting the masses into the EV revolution. However, the EV pickup has been plagued by tests showing its towing range is atrocious plus news about sudden battery fires, including in the factory. Add to that a damning report about the toxic mining practices in the Amazon.
See Ram’s electric truck commercial faceplant here.
According to a report from Bloomberg, aluminum refined by Norwegian outfit Norsk Hydro in Brazil involves a process that’s poisoning the local population. If you’ve read about the other mining operations in places like China and Africa which are key to harvesting minerals for electric car production, the details might not be shocking.
Still, to hear about severe human suffering so wealthy people can drive around in an $88,000 all-electric pickup truck is infuriating. Per Bloomberg, the mine in Brazil where bauxite is harvested “has long faced allegations of pollution and land appropriation.” Both are ideals most high-minded individuals who buy EVs would surely recoil at being associated with, or so one would think.
However, the refinery located on the Amazon River where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean is where the truly disturbing details emerge in the report. Pollution in the groundwater has resulted in mud with toxic levels of aluminum and other heavy metals, resulting in a laundry list of health problems ranging from neurological dysfunctions to terminal cancer.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Norsk Hydro, the owner of the refinery, led by a woman who lives nearby and has personally suffered. She blames the refinery for eight people in her family developing cancer and her grandson’s organs breaking through his skin when he was born.
Like we said before, this is one of many sad examples of how so-called “green” vehicles involve mining, refining, and manufacturing practices which by base standards are little more than barbaric. Meanwhile, in high-rise boardrooms far from the ecological disasters their products create, automotive executives plot how to market EVs as a way to “save the planet.” It’s enough to make you feel sick, if not reconsider what you think you know about the push to electrify the entire industry.
Source: Bloomberg
Images via Ford
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