The Latest Bull Case for Electric Cars: The Cheapest Batteries | Hacker News Reader

The Latest Bull Case for Electric Cars: The Cheapest Batteries

bloomberg.com

73 pointsprostoalex87 comments

I'm really grateful to Tesla/GM/Nissan and the people buying their cars. It seems like even with all the missed milestones (mostly Tesla) they're still dragging the industry forward by leaps. I wonder what it would look like without them. Remember, the original cellphone cost $4000-something, before inflation.

I don't even like cars, I like trains and walking and hate what cars have done to our cities and villages, but electric cars are the first tech in a long time that has given me a sense of optimism for the future that I've only ever felt looking at old advertisements[1] from before I was born.

If there were Beatitudes for technology, maybe they'd go like:

"Blessed are the early adopters, for they allow the meek-pocketbook'd to inherit the earth."

[1] https://imgur.com/FRKdZ2o (Have you ever seen an advertisement this positive? Ads these days mostly seem to fall into categories like glib humor and narcissistic 'buy this because you deserve it/you're the best/you can't be the best unless you have it'.)

> I'm really grateful to Tesla/GM/Nissan and the people buying their cars.

I find it interesting that it's GM and not Ford.

In the pre-2008 years (when Ford didn't need a bailout but GM did), Ford was investing in and rolling out gas-electric hybrids while GM was very heavily invested in SUVs and opted to minimize hybrid development while maximizing the $500/unit upgrade to "FlexFuel" type ICE drivetrains. When the price of gas spiked in 2005-2007, Ford benefitted while GM was reeling.

I wonder if the restructure during the bailout changed GM's priorities...

Ford's electrification strategy was and still is hybridization (much like Toyota's).

Personally, I think Ford/Toyota's strategy is best. Any improvement in the pure EV space also impact hybrids. It's completely possible for battery tech to improve to the point that a hybrid option is basically no cost (or at a cost savings). As in, instead of offering a V6 or turbo 4, a Ford can offer a hybrid drive train at the same price as those engines, but with the better performance and fuel economy.

Also, keep in mind that Ford is a really a truck builder with a car division. The bulk of their profits come from F-series pickups and EV pickups are probably a long way off, but hybrid pickups are coming this generation.

I think Nissan and GM are capitalizing on the fact that Ford and Toyota are sitting back, watching how the market evolves. But so far, neither the Leaf, Volt, nor Bolt have earned any any real ROI.

Hybrids lose so many benefits of a pure EV vehicle. EV drivetrains are much simpler. No complicated transmission or ICE. Easier to produce, scale, and maintain. Hybrids require all the complexity of both systems, and the weight.

I've never quite understood this. Why not have the gas engine simply drive a generator which charges the batteries / drives the electric motors, like a diesel-electric locomotive? Then there's no dual drivetrain issue.

Even for an all-electric car, it'd be nice to have a small gas engine to drive a generator to charge the batteries if you're too far from a socket.

I work at a train museum. Locomotives are fundamentally different. They have to have electric traction motors to grab the rails. Weight is unimportant. 125 tons. That's a quarter million pounds, 113,400 kg. Automobiles need every weight-saving trick the engineers can pull off. Such as combination drives.

Also trains don't change speed super often so they can have their prime mover running in the power band all of the time. A car changes speed at lot so its more inefficient to have the prime mover running in its power band constantly to drive the generator.

This is one of the functions of the Chevy Volt - "...its internal combustion engine powers an electric generator to extend the vehicle's range as needed. When the engine is running it may be periodically mechanically linked (by a clutch) to a planetary gear set, and hence the output drive axle, to improve energy efficiency." -- from wikipedia page on the Volt

Yeah, I'd love to know why this hasn't been an option. Seems like the best of both worlds

It is worth pointing out that the Toyota Prius, despite being a hybrid, is regularly featured as one of the most reliable cars out there, including regular ICE cars.

Meh? I mean I've owned many cars over the last 15 years or so and it's never been the ice/transmission/drivetrain that's failed.

Meanwhile every car I've ever had has suffered from window motor failure.

FWIW, extra complexity and complicated transmissions can be largely avoid with the "range extended EV" approach, where the gas engine is a generator producing electricity and doesn't drive the wheels directly.

That said, the best vehicle in that style that I can think of, the Chevy Volt, does actually allow the engine to drive the wheels and has two planetary gear/clutch systems. On the plus side, the gas engine is expected to need much less maintenance than a regular engine that's used in a much wider power range.

You want the BMW i3 with range extender, the gasoline engine only attaches to a generator.

benefits to who? the best thing for the car buyer is a standard ICE car - every mechanic out there can fix it. the worst thing out there for the consumer is an electric car that can only be fixed by the dealer

That's a great argument against every new technology in a car. For example, only a subset of body shops can do aluminum.

How are you going to get gas, when the rest of us are driving EVs?

Car companies are by nature and market, passive. What it takes for them to move is disruptive innovation (battery tech) or government regulations (I'm thinking more China than the US).

I've owned a hybrid, however my current EV (Ford Focus EV amusingly) is just simply better in so many ways for how I actually use my car (commute/kids/groceries). We have a 2nd non-EV minivan for trips/hauling.

Charger availability is a decently available now, and charging standard adoption (i.e., DC Fast) is a game changer.

totally agree hybrid is where the value is right now.

everyone on this site loves tesla and loves to think of their electric car as the solution to everyones car needs. but electric cars are still only viable as a 2nd car. a hybrid can be your only car

After taking a few 3000+ mile roadtrips, I'm done taking roadtrips. If I can't get there in a single day's drive, I'm flying, see you when you get there. Running the miles on the Model 3, it has more than enough to be my only car. If you don't do roadtrips, which are vacation-day intensive anyway, it's an interesting experiment to run the numbers if an electric works for you. Of course some hater will, till the end of time, find a scenario where it doesn't work. But I think if most people really think about it, they'll see how well the current range of a car like the Model 3 will fit their needs. It does for me and can't wait to get mine.

And don't forget, the battery tech keeps getting better. How long til the Model 3 hits 400 miles, or 500?

long drives are exactly the problem EV can’t do but hybrid can.

want to take a family trip sf to la? you will stop for gas once for 20 minutes and pay ~$60. want to take EV? plan for a long charging stop. want to fly? you’ll pay $100+/pp and rent a car when you get there. “most people” are going to see that EV has far less utility than a hybrid, usually at greater cost

That's a horrendous example. It's 5.7 hours between LA and SF. Perfectly fits what I described as a day's drive. You'd probably need to stop once to recharge for 30 minutes (super charge time with a Tesla), 10 more minutes than you described with the hybrid. Once you take a wiz, stretch the legs, change your kid's diaper, get them a quick snack and tend to everyone's needs you'll easily need 30 minutes in a 6 hour drive at some point. I'll take that.

Especially given the lack of complexity to electrics compared to hybrids, which are the worst vehicles on the road for complexity (inferior to a plain old lone ICE).

The only worse idea than a hybrid is hydrogen fuel cells. Some people like needlessly complex technology, I do not.

My Tesla is my only car. Its doing pretty good.

My Tesla is my only car. It's doing pretty good.

I can totally believe that it wouldn't work for you, but I'm not you.

This is a very Silicon Valley / US bubble mindset. Telsa/GM/Nissan have made much contribution but your are missing the major factor driving the EV industry forward which is government industrial policy.

The real reason is EU and China have announced their intention of banning ICE vehicles around 2030 with China having very aggressive EV marketshare goals starting next year. Companies that do not meet EV sale goals will have to buy credits from others that do just like a carbon emission market. This is causing all major automakers to not be complacent and invest heavily in EVs.

This is misleading. These (quite recent) changes in governmental policy have come about as a result of things that Tesla managed to achieve, firstly, on its own, and secondly, through its effects on the behavior of other automakers. No major automaker was meaningfully working on EVs before Tesla; now they all are.

Indeed, to a rare degree, the shift we're seeing in a major sector of the world economy is the result of the unilateral actions of just one person: Elon Musk.

This is typical Silicon Valley hype taking credit for everything. There were many EV manufacturers around the same time as Tesla (ex. Nissan, BYD). Even earlier, the supply chain for lithium batteries got momentum due to electric buses and hybrid vehicle manufactures but no one gives them credit, only Tesla for some reason. Currently, Tesla is only a small chunk of the entire EV and battery market but still gets all the credit.

You can see this in the Tesla Semi or the Tesla battery pack announcement. Companies have been mass producing them 4 years before and are already being used in production today. However, being B2B, these products were largely low key. But somehow Tesla gets all the credit these and "moving the industry forward". Chinese and Korean battery manufactures have also been expanding production like crazy and account for the vast majority of production but only the GigaFactory gets any mention which cause some people think Tesla alone is responsible for the decreasing price of batteries.

Major auto manufactures are working on EV mainly due to government policy. I agree private companies seeing traction selling EVs is a large impetus for the new government policies, but to only credit Tesla is over-exagerating it's contributions. How much does Tesla influence Chinese policy when 95% of Chinese EVs are made by domestic brands?

Can you give us a list of companies producing semi trucks with large range starting 4 years ago? All of the ones I've seen have small ranges.

Likewise, can you tell us what BYD should be praised for? They keep on announcing that they're going to compete with Tesla head-to-head with long-range high-performance cars, but the only thing they've managed to get volume on are low-performance, lower-range Chinese compliance cars. Tesla is praised for making electric cars sexy; is BYD doing that?

Third, I'm sure you've noticed that at the lower end of the US market, the Leaf gets a lot of credit, as does the Bolt.

1) New models will obviously have more range than ones 4 years ago... My point was the Tesla Semi should be treated as incremental rather than revolutionary, just like releasing a new smartphone model with more RAM than one 4 years ago. Also the Tesla Semi hasn't even launched yet so they can easily overpromise making comparisons with any existing offerings difficult.

2) As with Ford for ICE vehicles, affordable EVs selling higher volumes are much more important to than the premium EVs offered by Tesla in terms bringing the tech mainstream. In this way, BYD and Nissan should be credited much more than Tesla. In terms of contribution, I would put BYD much higher than Tesla: BYD manufacturers their own batteries, sell more vehicles, drive industry competition in the much more relevant CN market, and their success influnced the Chinese government to phase out ICE cars.

3) My post was specifically replying the the person above who was worshipping Musk on a pedestal and giving all the credit to Tesla.

1) The first electric cars were from the early 1900s, everything since should be treated as incremental, just like the iPhone wasn't that much of an advance over other smartphones.

2) Halo products are a concept, but apparently not in cars. BYD's failed attempts to introduce premium cars, followed by eventual success in me-too compliance cars for the Chinese market deserves a participation award. Not praise.

3) Uh, OK. Never mind the facts, let's focus on opposing Musk worship.

Don't think I can ever convince people like you. In terms of scale, driving down costs and adoption, Tesla is a shrimp.

Keep being arrogant and think the world revolves around Silicon Valley tech companies. When EVs completely replaces ICE, people like you will think Musk did by himself against dumb incumbents while completely ignoring the much much greater contributions of everyone else.

I'll just leave with this statistic [1]:

> China’s demand for electric bus batteries is almost equal to that of demand for all electric vehicle batteries

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-08/china-goe...

Huh, you just made up a bunch of stuff and said I believe it. I'm not the strawman you were attempting to beat.

Without hard proof, but having watched the last decade of environmental tech developments wit interest, I agree with you pretty much completely. None of those policies would exist if there was no hope of the success of the commercial technology within those timeframes. It would be like legislating nuclear fusion power generation. Nobody else did much of anything until Tesla began succeeding, and more importantly prepped the consumer market for EV demand.

Government policy would cave-in if the private companies lacked innovation and told them it was impossible. You need existence proofs like Tesla, who are highly leveraged to making EVs work and don't care a wit about preserving the old business.

As a concrete example, consider the government effort to shift ethanol-to-be-mixed-with-gasoline from food-based sources to non-food sources like switchgrass. No one figured out how to efficiently turn switchgrass into ethanol, so it failed. And that was despite a huge economic incentive.

In contrast, the government effort to promote electric cars, solar energy, and wind energy appear to be really paying off.

Yes, the US will be a rounding error for the next decade. China will have tens of millions of EV's within a decade.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/business/ford-china-elect...

They will soon have millions of charging stations:

"China's government is seeking to combat range anxiety for electric vehicle buyers with a pledge to build a charging station for every vehicle on the road by 2020. China plans a total of 4.8m charging outlets and stations by 2020"

https://www.ft.com/content/f9aece28-d65f-11e7-8c9a-d9c0a5c8d...

"wonder what it would look like without them" ... they are following a trend in tech they see, not inventing physics.

Its our phds and universities that prusue the underlying science. Companies make a cost analysis on the RandD and reep the profits ... if it wasnt GM it would be another company, and eventually it will be most companies if the tech proves itself to be as good as the propaganda says.

All in a days work of capitalism , making sure hard work it rewarded and that we keep striving for better

I dont praise GM for their work , I pay them , a fair market price. Thats what they deserve, but they are not gods they are just good engineers and business men doing their jobs and hopefully our schools keep creating them.

Enterprises tend to stay in their local optimum until they are pushed out, and are forced by a competitor to look for another cow to milk. And there’s a reason for that - finding another cow to milk is expensive and risky.

If Tesla had not been created, those other enterprises would have milked the gasoline cow for way longer.. perhaps another decade? I’m grateful that Elon is sticking out his neck on a daily basis, potentially slowing global warming as a result.

>Enterprises tend to stay in their local optimum until they are pushed out, and are forced by a competitor to look for another cow to milk. And there’s a reason for that - finding another cow to milk is expensive and risky.

That's a very nice statement of the innovator's dilemma.

One of the greatest things about owning electric car is the absolutely minimal maintenance. It's actually a simple machine even though it's got a lot of technology in it. With less moving parts there's less things breaking.

This is great news for the battery. The $209 price puts a new Leaf's battery in the $5k range, which is slightly more than what Nissan currently charges to replace it. At $100 then a new battery costs just $2400, even less with a trade in. I can imagine pay that amount every 8 years.

What I don’t understand about the Leaf though - it’s about €13k more expensive than my car when it was new 2y ago (Kia Ceed SW), which even has more extras than the basic Leaf. If the 40kwh battery costs about 8k now, and the rest of the car is cheaper to build - where does the remaining 5k go? Nissan’s pockets? Or is this owed to lower unit production?

Nissan could almost certainly sell the Leaf for much less. When they wanted to clear out 2017 inventory, they offered $10000 discounts on top of all the government incentives. People took a brand new "$32,000" car home for $11,500 or less.

But the market's currently willing to bear the price they're asking, so why not ask it? They sold over 20,000 units of the new 2018 Leaf in its first month on the market, and government incentives around the world make the actual buying price much lower than the sticker price for many buyers.

I also have to disagree about the Kia Ceed being nicer than a basic Leaf. There's many years of fuel savings to factor in as well.

They lowered the prices because they needed to sell a certain number for compliance reasons, so it was a better deal to sell them at a loss:

Nissan says that lands the Leaf in a sweet spot between so-called compliance EVs—low-cost electrics with relatively limited range that manufacturers produce to meet certain regulations—and Chevrolet’s Bolt EV and Tesla’s Model 3, both of which offer greater than 200 miles of range but at a higher cost.

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2018-nissan-leaf-first-...

That'd be a plausible explanation if they didn't run the $10K discounts outside CARB states, which they did. There were no "compliance" benefits to offset any theoretical losses on those sales.

A good chunk of that difference is Korea vs Japan. Korean brands tend to be a lot cheaper than Japanese ones for the same level of trim and kind of car.

And Nissan is one of the more expensive Japanese brands.

The Ceed is arguably the most mediocre car since the Pacer (with the possible exception of the Yaris). It is less expensive because it is cheaper, in every sense of the word.

Seems to be pretty damn reliable though, at least judging by the comments I could find online from what looked like genuine owners. Not a lot of people can afford nowadays to drive expensive stuff, i.e. cars that break when you least expect it and that have expensive repair bills.

I imagine it's the lower unit production.

The new Nissan Leaf looks like an impressive step forward. Double the driving range and around a third more horsepower from last year's model for the same price.

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2018-nissan-leaf-first-...

It's only 25-40% more range than last year's model, not double. The battery went from 30 kWh to 40 kWh.

The first generation battery was 24.0kWh, the 30.0 came a few years later as an option. The original range was 73 miles, then 105 miles, to now 150 miles.

The OP was apparently comparing 2011 figures to 2018 ones.

+40% two times is double, so it is encouraging

I have a 2013 Nissan Leaf which is down to about 70 miles of range which is annoying. And still, I'd never buy another ICE again. My next car will be a Tesla or a Bolt. I don't think the 2018 Leaf is in the picture but maybe if Nissan gave me a good trade-in.

Thanks for the info. What was the range when new and what type of batteries does it have? And charge times?

Not the original poster, but I also own a first-gen Leaf.

> What was the range when new

When I bought my Leaf (used, 1.5 years old, half of MSRP) it showed 89mi with 12/12 of total potential capacity (compared to a new battery).

After 5 years of ownership, it's down to about 60mi and the dash shows the battery is about 7/12 (meaning 5/12 of total potential capacity has been lost over time).

> And charge times?

All I know is it takes less than 8 hours. The local utility has a pricing plan for EV owners which encourages charging from 11p to 7am (cheaper during off-peak hours). I set the car to have full charge by 7a and it takes less than 8 hours for a full charge, even with the 120V plug. I have to remember to plug it in every night or I'm screwed in the morning (I don't use the phone app, but it has features that can mitigate your forgetfulness).

I only drive it in-county and generally only one trip per day. I don't charge it during the day. I've also learned to drive like a very conservative retired person (to optimize range).

The newer Leafs have a different battery (not interchangeable with 1st gen bodies) and the next gen Leaf will have even better range at a similar price).

I never found out if the new leafs actually use proper thermal management with a coolant loop on the pack. It's a shame the never did it on the original and battery life suffers because of it.

> I never found out if the new leafs actually use proper thermal management with a coolant loop on the pack.

It does not. It's just a 25% larger version of last year's battery.

A 60 kWh battery pack manufactured by LG Chem is slated for later in 2018. LG Chem's battery packs for other EVs are liquid cooled.

My uninformed theory is that Nissan contracted to buy far more batteries from AESC than they ended up needing for the Leaf's sales volume, and is still getting rid of them.

Damn, that's unfortunate. It has a bad side-effect of giving EVs a worse name then the deserve.

? man what are you talking about? Its normal battery degradation and the car doesnt need any special thermal management or whatever you call it. Besides, if anyone believes in the leaps in battery capacity and charging speeds, you should throw away your old battery every 2 years because it's already old, too heavy and not environmentally friendly enough.

> Its normal battery degradation and the car doesnt need any special thermal management or whatever you call it.

Sorry but you're wrong on this. The Nissan Leaf's battery degradation is not normal; it's so abnormal that Nissan was forced to retroactively add a warranty for it, and redesign the battery pack twice within the first generation to try to slow it down. Cars driven in hot climates lost upwards of 30% of their battery capacity in 1-2 years because the battery has no real thermal management, which virtually every other EV on the road has.

Tesla's vehicles, for example, have been on the road as long as the Leaf. They lose about 5% battery capacity in the first 50,000 miles and less than 10% after 100,000 miles on average. Chevrolet has had zero warranty claims in the entire life of the Volt vehicle program for battery degradation.

Meanwhile, my Nissan Leaf has 23,000 miles on the odometer and has lost over 25% of its original battery capacity.

> Besides, if anyone believes in the leaps in battery capacity and charging speeds, you should throw away your old battery every 2 years because it's already old, too heavy and not environmentally friendly enough.

You're being disingenuous, right? The batteries don't change that much that quickly, and there's no environmental case for throwing away $5000+ in working batteries every other year. There's nobody selling upgraded replacement batteries for EVs anyway.

This is why we need Tesla to keep pushing carmakers forward. The majority of them seem either clueless about building long-range EVs, or they don't care enough to make them "great".

So they don't bother to create a new EV platform from scratch, but just re-purpose their ICE cars (limiting them in total range and efficiency), or do stuff like supporting only lower-power fast chargers, or cut corners on the type of batteries they use, which degrade fast, or don't properly protect them, and so on.

Plus, they have an incentive to drag their feet with EV progress. The incentive is not having to suffer dramatic changes within how their products are made and what type of people they need to hire or fire, and so on.

It's the same incentive that kept Nokia and Blackberry from not just starting to build touchscreen phones, but committing to making great ones and actually transitioning the whole company to them.

Who here can say that most car companies are currently ready to transition their whole companies to making EVs? I don't think any major car company actually thinks like that right now, or if they do their plans read more like "We'll get started on becoming an EV company 15 years from now".

EVs are expensive and cost cutting was the only way to make early ones viable. Even with all that cost cutting, the Leaf is a $30-35k car.

I’m in the temperate Bay Area and I’ve done well enough without.

But I was in Tucson for Thanksgiving and my cousin was replacing a 12V for his SUV. Apparently 12Vs don’t live long down there.

Lead acid batteries only last 2-3 years in hot climates. Battery thermal management is mandatory for longevity (which Tesla does).

That's just assuming ordinary mass production economies, not improved battery technology. This is just a 50% price decrease on increased manufacturing volume, which is not unusual.

Battery cells are a good item for automated manufacturing. They're all the same, and they're made by the millions. (For some reason, Panasonic is having troubles at their battery cell plant in Nevada, but they should get past that. Panasonic makes the cells, Tesla assembles them into packs.)

That also holds for recycling. Taking apart packs and recycling them should be an efficient process. It already is for lead-acid batteries.

Hey didn't I see an article on the same website claiming Musk made some claim about semi which can't be true because of battery costs? I'm on phone so I couldn't double check it easily. Apologies if my memories are failing me.

I just can't bring myself to replace my aging 2003 Subaru when I know cars are going to improve so much in the next 5 years.

Between electric drivetrain technology and self-driving, it seems like things are going to improve rapidly in the next 5-10 years.

If you get a Model 3 with the option, you're prepared for autonomous driving. Stretching out an 03 another 10 years will be a trying affair. It'll be a 24 year old car. Just buy one when you feel it needs to be replaced, which I'd assume should be soon. Be glad that there is an option out there that covers you, at least on the autonomous driving front. Tesla will enable it as soon as the legal situation it is sorted out. We're past the days of worrying about getting the battery chemistry good-enough too.

I'd say you actually stretched that car out just the right amount of time to reap the benefits, perfect timing. I'm holding onto my '07 till I get my own Model 3, so I'm in a similar boat.

Isn't there a limited amount of easily minable lithium metal, though? I could have sworn I read that somewhere...

It does not matter. You need less than a dollar's worth of lithium to a kWh of battery thay costs 200 dollars. Once you increase a price of commodity by an order of magnitude - which we can here easily afford - all current reserve estimates are worthless due to massive new interest in research and development in mining technology and deposit discovery.

Or recycling. Why mine when you already have some sitting around?

What you are saying leads me to the following thought: lithium will be the new oil. With all the same consequences that oil has now.

This is simply false. The amount of lithium in a battery is about 400 g/kWh

http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/How_Much_Lithium_Pe...

Putting a 100 kWh battery in a car would then require 40 kg of lithium, and with 2bn cars (projection for mid-21st century) you're looking at 80 million tonnes of lithium. The ocean contains about 240 billion tonnes of lithium, 3000x requirements, and extracting lithium from seawater costs about $30/kg:

http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-...

so the total value of that lithium comes to less than $2.4T. While not a small figure, this is miniscule compared to the global oil industry, which brings in more than that per year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_co...

and that's using some of the most pessimistic numbers for lithium costs and requirements that I can find. The actual operation of the global lithium market will probably bring the total cost well below $1T, and seawater extraction will probably never be necessary:

https://gigaom.com/2010/03/10/will-seawater-stave-off-a-lith...

Lithium absolutely will not, ever, be in any way comparable to oil in terms of price, environmental damage, or political impact. Lithium Chicken-Littling is not helpful to anyone.

I was explicitly referring to the topic of mining and discovering new reserves. But thanks for resources.

This is pretty unlikely given that lithium is recoverable, extremely common (an element, not a complex organic molecule), and not, you know, we don't burn it to get value out of it.

>This is pretty unlikely given that lithium is recoverable

This is a bit of an aside, but I think it's interesting that oil is recoverable from plastics via pyrolisis.

Unfortunately only about 8% of the extracted oil is turned into plastics.

But not from fuel use...

The good news is the batteries can be recycled and there is a lot of new research on developing new types of batteries that don't use lithium

Lithium can be recycled though.

According to this [0] with the current mining rates of lithium it was last us 365 years. However, given the exponential rate that technology has grown at, we will hopefully have figured a solution to this, either with different battery technology or some other way of getting lithium.

[0] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/is-there-enough...

Also, let's not forget that old batteries can and will be recycled.

And are. Honda and Toyota have battery recycling programs for their hybrids.

Recycling or "reuse" because it seems that Toyota at least just gives them to green energy projects... An old hybrid battery when provided in quantities of a few hundred make great off grid energy storage devices.

http://corporatenews.pressroom.toyota.com/releases/2015+yell...

I wonder how much of the cost of producing lithium is for energy that could come from renewables. And the trucks that transport the ore could be EV's. Let's get a whole ecosystem going here.

By the 2060s, we will be pursuing carbon fission - not to generate energy, but to make more lithium.

There are over 230 billion tonnes of lithium in ocean water. 1kWh of batteries requires around 200 grams.

Currently most of the lithium comes from brines simply because it's cheaper this way.

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