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- Jan 1, 2018
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The larger issue here is who won't be driving an electric vehicle and the answer to that is "most of us". It is simple supply of the current battery raw materials which will limit the number of electric cars on the road. For instance each Tesla has about 50 pounds of lithium in the battery. World production of lithium per year is currently 160,000 tons which would limit the number of vehicles produced with lithium batteries to 640,000 per year. That is less than 10% of vehicles sold new in the USA each year.
Further, current reserves of lithium in the ground are around 15 million tons. Which would limit the number of vehicles using batteries with lithium to 600 million. That would cover the US and a good chunk of the rest of the world but would leave 400 million current vehicle owners without a vehicle.
Of course as demand goes up mining companies will find more lithium deposits to be mined but it is highly likely that those deposits will be far harder to extract than the current proven reserves. Prices will increase accordingly. And that says nothing of the environmental damage done over the years by the production and use of lithium. In my lifetime we have gone from using lead in everything from paint to fuel to limiting the uses and shutting down production within the US. I suspect shortly after lithium is mandated to be used to power all cars it will be attacked much in the same way as fossil fuels have been as bringing about the "end of the world" and the production and use will be severely curtailed and probably taxed radically to deter its' use.
Then there is the issue of generating the electricity to charge all those cars. It will take construction of power plants which 99% of will use fossil fuels and 1% will be renewable. There won't be any nuclear because 3 mile island.
I will stop before I get political and end by saying that no matter what, someone will always want humans to have zero footprint on the planet, yet they have a footprint on the planet.
I don't believe the assumption that the production lithium is always going to be a limiting factor in electric vehicle construction is a valid assumption.
https://www.greencarreports.com/new...s-energy-density-can-rise-10-fold-researchers
I think Nickle makes up something like 10% of the earths core... second only to iron as the earths most abundant element.
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