A number of car brands are now being criticized for building batteries for electric cars at all. It goes beyond human rights, says the NGO Amnesty International.
In a new report, car brands such as BYD, Mitsubishi and Hyundai receive harsh criticism from the organization Amnesty International.
Here, we have reviewed how 13 car brands handle human rights when they have the batteries for electric cars produced.
Several of the car brands fail when it comes to human rights in the supply chains. In particular, the organization claims that there are problems when the car brands hunt for minerals for the batteries.
According to Amnesty, several producers make mistakes and risk exposing local communities to exploitation, health risks and environmental damage.
At the bottom of the list is BYD with 11 out of 90 possible points, while Tesla and Mercedes top the same list with 49 and 51 points respectively. However, none of the car brands take human rights into account, the NGO believes.
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– Although some progress has been made, the overall results are very disappointing. BYD, one of the largest and fastest growing electric car companies, ended up at the bottom of our list.
– The company's report shows a serious lack of transparency regarding human rights in battery supply chains, says Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
The general secretary also criticizes what her organization calls the hidden costs of moving from cars with internal combustion engines to only running on electricity.
– Mining to obtain minerals used in electric locomotives can involve enormous risks for people and the environment.
– Amnesty's previous investigations have shown how industrial cobalt extraction can be linked to forced evictions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
– It is therefore of the utmost importance that electric car companies use their enormous influence as global buyers of minerals to influence mining companies and other suppliers further down the supply chain to reduce the risk of human rights violations, says Agnès Callamard.
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