Will There Be Batteries For Us When All The Cars Are Electric?

[Mr. Coffee]

I don’t know where you think people will have money to just buy these very expensive electric vehicles so they can just ABANDON their ICs.

You are assuming that electric cars will stay expensive. I very much doubt that, and as economies of scale are achieved I expect prices to drop precipitously.

The first cell phones cost nearly $4000. Ten years later they were selling for around 20 percent of that price. A cell phone of similar functionality today is basically free and the phone company is making money on airtime. And that $1000 iPhone has insanely more functionality than any phone had 25 or 30 years ago.

There is also considerable evidence that range is increasing dramatically. Early Teslas from 5+ years ago had about 200 mi range, which was a big deal for the time. They are pushing 350 miles now and are talking of ranges approaching 500 miles in the near future. So that six-hour round trip in the country sounds pretty feasible, unless you are driving at 90mph the whole way...

 

[Mr. Coffee]

No.
There is no battery fairy waving a magic wand creating lithium Cobalt or nickel.

February 2021 Japan Auto Mfg Assn. Member
"The current business model of the car industry is going to collapse," he said. "The more EVs we build, the worse carbon dioxide gets… When politicians are out there saying, 'Let's get rid of all cars using gasoline,' do they understand this?"

grandson of Toyota founder, Kiichiro Toyoda,

Because:
'The carbon emissions necessary to manufacture an electric vehicle reveal that on a net basis, there are more emissions for vehicle bought and used for its expected lifetime, than would be generated by buying and using a conventional gasoline-powered vehicle.'

“One of the biggest environmental problems caused by our endless hunger for the latest and smartest devices is a growing mineral crisis, particularly those needed to make our batteries,” says Christina Valimaki an analyst at Elsevier. . .

It’s a relatively cheap and effective process, but it uses a lot of water – approximately 500,000 gallons per tonne of lithium. In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, mining activities consumed 65 per cent of the region’s water. That is having a big impact on local farmers – who grow quinoa and herd llamas – in an area where some communities already have to get water driven in from elsewhere. . .

Can you give me a link to what you are citing?

This is a repeated trope and probably is wildly inaccurate, and has been repeated not just about electric cars but wind turbines and PV solar as well.

First off, and most obviously, the work has to be shown. What assumptions are being made about the lifespan of an EV? You'll likely get very different answers if you assume 100,000 miles or 300,000 miles. Chances are that over time EVs will have a much longer lifespan than present-day IC vehicles.

Second, what assumptions are made about the electrical power sources for the manufacturing process? That carbon footprint will be dramatically different if the electricity comes from hydropower or renewables as opposed to coal or NG. And I think it is a safe bet that over time (and probably fairly rapidly) coal will be rapidly phased out, as it is no longer economically competitive to operate a coal plant in most parts of the world.

Third, a thought experiment: we need to build machines to build EVs. So we need to count the carbon footprint of those machines. We also needed to build machines to build the machines that build EVs. So we need to count the carbon footprint of those machines as well. We also needed to build machines to build the machines that build the machines that build EVs. So we need to count the carbon footprint of those machines as well. Using the above logic the carbon footprint of any manufactured good is ridiculously high and could arguably be infinite (what if there is a cycle in the tooling process?) -- which is just plain silly. So there is a deep problem in the math and I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out what exactly that is.

Obviously the carbon footprint of any manufactured good is going to be nonzero. It takes a ton of coal to make a ton of silicon or a ton of steel. But the number can and probably is smaller than your post implies.

 

[Dallant]

Not sure which batteries are you talking about.
Recycling is why you get a core charge and return the old core when you buy a car battery.
Bosch makes a big deal out of returning ebike batteries them for recycling. They say that the dealer will ensure that a Bosch PowerPack is disposed of in an environmentally sound way free of charge. Disposal in the United States is handled by CALL2RECYCLE at (877) 723-1297

 

[theemartymac]

We always have trouble imagining a future beyond what we currently see. There are hundreds of new examples of battery and capacitor tech in development, and that is ignoring the potential for new fuel sources that may be swappable in place of an ICE powerplant but using electric drive motors. Which ones will break out to become mainstream? Yet to be seen, but of course, progress in some form is always a guarantee...

Future batteries, coming soon: Charge in seconds, last months and power over the air

Energy capture, storage and generation remains a vibrant area of research. Here we examine show of the research breakthrough in future battery tech

www.pocket-lint.com

And I do still think some sort of fission/fusion reactors are in our very long term future for heavy load production as well. When we make electric truly the dominant option, we can start to invest in induction highways, and other on-demand tech for the majority of traffic in a large part of the word.

World-first in-road charging test for trucks successful, highway speeds next

A project in Sweden aims to show that a large-scale wireless inductive project for trucks might be possible.

www.greencarreports.com

 

[J.R.]

When I was young a 10 year old car was considered really old. That's no longer the case. I have an F150 that'll be 10 years old this year and it still looks great and drives like new. I see everyday drivers with cars that are 10 to 20 years old all the time. I haven't had any major repairs, the only maintenance costs other than some fluids are the same on an EV. You still need brakes, tires and shocks.

Battery prices for EV are coming down.

How Much Does an Electric Car Battery Cost?

Prices of electric vehicles are going down, and the market has exploded in the last 10 years. From electric car battery replacement costs to scheduled maintenance, here are a few things to consider when you're EV shopping.

www.dealnews.com

But replacing a battery out of warranty (8 years, 100k miles) is more than replacing the entire motor in a ICE automobile. At $16k it can be more expensive than buying a very good used car. There's enough experience now to read accounts of people getting repair bills that are just too high to accept.

Then there is the idea of buying a 5 year old used EV for $25k. We see the distrust people have in buying a one year old used ebike for $1k.

I'd like to own an EV, but I will go into that world eyes wide open.

 

[kmccune]

I'm sure that's true for me. I'm 71 y o in a month. But given all the push to go electric, both car makers and government, It won't be long if things go the way they want them to go. Lots of economic opportunities here. Lots of pain too. If they try to force the change-over too fast .... trouble in River City. Why the big push I have to wonder. We don't have the charging stations necessary. Not even close. The vehicles don't have the range. We don't have the electricity generating capacity. Do we even have the recycling capability for all the used up batteries? I have no idea. We pushed into windmills and now they are burying thousands of the unrecyclable blades in landfills. One good thing I guess ... all the petroleum that will be saved can go into making everything out of plastic. [/sarc}

Wonder why the blades cannot be used for sluiceways or retaining walls? Of course the trouble is most things are not designed to be recycled and the recycled stuff ends up be more expensive or costing more than 'purpose made" I do not know whatever became of the bottles that one company used to contain their products, they were designed to be reused as building materials

 

[FlatSix911]

Please don't make this one of those political slug fests.

Anyone can search up numerous articles about the availability of not just lithium but how expensive it is to process and how much water it takes. Same goes for nickel and the other necessary minerals. Aside from that knowledgeable people like the head of Toyota points out that our headlong rush to electric cars is really putting the cart before the horse in that we will not have the electricity production required without massive investment in power production.

I've read several articles now and it's got me thinking we may right now be at the zenith of our ebike culture.
As the batteries we are using now and can source soon may be the best deals we will ever see. Will you still be riding your bike if battery costs double? Triple?

The short answer to your original question: Will There Be Batteries For Us When All The Cars Are Electric?
Yes, there will be more batteries and they will be cheaper as continued research and development lowers the cost per KWh.

How the US plans to capture the EV battery market

A dive into the current EV battery market and the measures the United States is taking to capture a larger piece of it for the future.

electrek.co

Tesla submits investment proposal for a battery project in nickel-rich Indonesia

Tesla has reportedly officially submitted an investment proposal for a battery project in nickel-rich Indonesia, according to a government official....

electrek.co

 

[Mike_V]

Can you give me a link to what you are citing?

This is a repeated trope and probably is wildly inaccurate, and has been repeated not just about electric cars but wind turbines and PV solar as well.

First off, and most obviously, the work has to be shown. What assumptions are being made about the lifespan of an EV? You'll likely get very different answers if you assume 100,000 miles or 300,000 miles. Chances are that over time EVs will have a much longer lifespan than present-day IC vehicles.

Second, what assumptions are made about the electrical power sources for the manufacturing process? That carbon footprint will be dramatically different if the electricity comes from hydropower or renewables as opposed to coal or NG. And I think it is a safe bet that over time (and probably fairly rapidly) coal will be rapidly phased out, as it is no longer economically competitive to operate a coal plant in most parts of the world.

Third, a thought experiment: we need to build machines to build EVs. So we need to count the carbon footprint of those machines. We also needed to build machines to build the machines that build EVs. So we need to count the carbon footprint of those machines as well. We also needed to build machines to build the machines that build the machines that build EVs. So we need to count the carbon footprint of those machines as well. Using the above logic the carbon footprint of any manufactured good is ridiculously high and could arguably be infinite (what if there is a cycle in the tooling process?) -- which is just plain silly. So there is a deep problem in the math and I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out what exactly that is.

Obviously the carbon footprint of any manufactured good is going to be nonzero. It takes a ton of coal to make a ton of silicon or a ton of steel. But the number can and probably is smaller than your post implies.

In addition to Lithium, Cobalt and Nickel
And Now: the Tin Squeeze
This new reference :https://www.reuters.com/article/global-metals-idUKL1N2KA0YO
"Stockpiles in LME-registered warehouses are near their lowest on record and traders are paying huge premiums for contracts that promise quick delivery of metal.
Benchmark tin on the LME was down 0.4% at $22,850 a tonne in official trading, having hit $23,435 on Tuesday. Prices are up 12% this year after gaining 18% in 2020."

Because :
Nobel Prize winner explains potential for tin use in lithium-ion batteries
Jan 25, 2021. https://www.internationaltin.org/tin-in-lithium-ion-batteries/

Stanley Whittingham, jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2019 as one of the founding fathers of lithium-ion batteries, has recently reviewed potential for tin in lithium-ion batteries and reported on his own team's tin R&D. In his paper published

 

[reed scott]

And Now: the Tin Squeeze
This new reference :https://www.reuters.com/article/global-metals-idUKL1N2KA0YO
"Stockpiles in LME-registered warehouses are near their lowest on record and traders are paying huge premiums for contracts that promise quick delivery of metal.
Benchmark tin on the LME was down 0.4% at $22,850 a tonne in official trading, having hit $23,435 on Tuesday. Prices are up 12% this year after gaining 18% in 2020."

Because :
Nobel Prize winner explains potential for tin use in lithium-ion batteries
Jan 25, 2021. https://www.internationaltin.org/tin-in-lithium-ion-batteries/

Stanley Whittingham, jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2019 as one of the founding fathers of lithium-ion batteries, has recently reviewed potential for tin in lithium-ion batteries and reported on his own team's tin R&D. In his paper published

They'll have to reopen the old tin mines in Britain and go deeper.

 

[Mulezen]

China with it’s hammerlock on these rare minerals has encouraged the world to develop alternate sources (Chile). I read somewhere that the black water ponds from coal are being explored as concentrators of these minerals which hopefully incentivizes cleanup. My understanding re: old battery packs is that they are repurposed.

 

[Mulezen]

Notice the last paragraphs where rare earth minerals are eliminated.

Firms backed by Robert Downey Jr. and Bill Gates have funded an electric motor company that slashes energy consumption | TechCrunch

Sometimes the smallest innovations can have the biggest impacts on the world's efforts to stop global climate change. Arguably, one of the biggest

techcrunch.com

 

[BET]

I don’t know where you think people will have money to just buy these very expensive electric vehicles so they can just ABANDON their ICs.
Given good alternatives, I agree that many will change to electric if it fits their lifestyle. I’ve owned numerous hybrids for well over a decade but an all electric makes no sense in the rural area where I need to drive 3 hrs to visit family. Range and lack of any quick charging capability won’t be there for at least a decade.
And I’m still gonna drive my old truck till it dies. It means too much to me and I just don’t see me buying an all electric pickup in my life.

I just read about a new electric three wheel vehicle built in US. Some energy comes from its solar panels - enough to go 40 miles. It plugs in. They say it charges in 15 minutes.They have three sizes of battery - with bigger battery it has good range. Price - $26k for cheapest model with smallest battery (250 mile range). Quick also. 0 to 60 in 3,5 seconds with larger battery they say.

 

[Dallant]

I just read about a new electric three wheel vehicle built in US. Some energy comes from its solar panels - enough to go 40 miles. It plugs in. They say it charges in 15 minutes.They have three sizes of battery - with bigger battery it has good range. Price - $26k for cheapest model with smallest battery (250 mile range). Quick also. 0 to 60 in 3,5 seconds with larger battery they say.

What company? Link to what article you read?

 

[theemartymac]

What company? Link to what article you read?

The Aptera?

Aptera unveils three-wheeled solar electric car that "requires no charging"

US startup Aptera has developed a solar and electric vehicle that it claims doesn't need to be charged for most drivers, with a range of up to 1,000 miles on a full battery.

www.dezeen.com

Aptera Motors

Aptera is the world’s first Solar Electric Vehicle that requires no charging for most daily use - giving you the freedom to do more with less impact on the planet.

www.aptera.us

 

[Dallant]

The Aptera?

Aptera unveils three-wheeled solar electric car that "requires no charging"

US startup Aptera has developed a solar and electric vehicle that it claims doesn't need to be charged for most drivers, with a range of up to 1,000 miles on a full battery.

www.dezeen.com

Aptera Motors

Aptera is the world’s first Solar Electric Vehicle that requires no charging for most daily use - giving you the freedom to do more with less impact on the planet.

www.aptera.us

Great idea if you don’t need any more room than that.

 

[FlatSix911]

The Aptera?

Aptera unveils three-wheeled solar electric car that "requires no charging"

US startup Aptera has developed a solar and electric vehicle that it claims doesn't need to be charged for most drivers, with a range of up to 1,000 miles on a full battery.

www.dezeen.com

Aptera Motors

Aptera is the world’s first Solar Electric Vehicle that requires no charging for most daily use - giving you the freedom to do more with less impact on the planet.

www.aptera.us

Love the sleek design...

 

[BET]

The Aptera?

Aptera unveils three-wheeled solar electric car that "requires no charging"

US startup Aptera has developed a solar and electric vehicle that it claims doesn't need to be charged for most drivers, with a range of up to 1,000 miles on a full battery.

www.dezeen.com

Aptera Motors

Aptera is the world’s first Solar Electric Vehicle that requires no charging for most daily use - giving you the freedom to do more with less impact on the planet.

www.aptera.us

Yes Aptera.

 

[J.R.]

GM evaluating second U.S. battery plant for EVs amid construction of $2.3 billion facility in Ohio

Battery and battery cell production are considered linchpins to unlocking GM's plans for its next-generation EVs to be profitable.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Merle Nelson]

Did QuantumScape Just Solve a 40-Year-Old Battery Problem?

Earlier this year, the startup claimed to have a revolutionary solid-state lithium-ion cell that could change EVs forever. Now it has data to prove it.

www.wired.com

Popular Mechanics has an article about this too but I wasn't able to view it without joining/paying.

 

[Prairie Dog]

I'm waiting for the day when dilithium crystals and Transwarp drive come on line...an enterprising thought.