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The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

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Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#21

Post by Retric »

sjwright wrote: post #19
ajross wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Plug-in electric sales in 2018 were up 61% over 2017, which was 51% higher than 2016 (via quick wikipedia check). What numbers would you want to see before calling that a "boom"? How much higher than 60% growth does something have to have before it's not "strangled"? I think that's silly. Clearly these things are going somewhere. Production at all levels is adapting…

Of course EVs are booming in relative terms. Things boom all the time in relative terms. That's not remarkable. The pure EV market will eventually dominate vehicle sales in most segments, and most of the rest will be PHEV. Have EVs even hit 1% of worldwide vehicle sales yet? Call me back when it passes 10% and we'll talk about an EV boom.

We are well past that 1%.

Global EV Sales In May 2019: Over 179,000 At 2.3% Market Share https://insideevs.com/news/357198/global-ev-sales-in-may-201...

The current trend is under 4 years until EV’s are 10% of global car sales. It’s likely adoption will slow down at some point, but 50% of all new car sales being EV could happen within 10 years. Though it would take much longer for EV’s to represent 1/2 of all cars on the road.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#22

Post by sjwright »

joe-collins wrote: post #18
sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

I think a robust charging network is a third dependency. You need to have a garage, or commute to someplace with or near a charger. Down here in San Diego (East County), I don't see a lot of the latter.

It's a dependency for dominating the entire vehicle market, but it's not a dependency for the substantial slice of the market with access to off-street parking at home. That's probably at least 10–20% of the market right there.

Add to that the slice of the market with access to off-street parking at work which can be retrofitted for charging. As EV sales grow, car parking will adapt and recharging will be bundled into the cost of parking. That's another 10–20%.

Once you've sold to those markets, the "robust charging network" will solve itself.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#23

Post by taneq »

crb002 wrote: post #2

Industrial battery will eat it.

Exactly. The potential market for grid storage for renewables will be similar in size to the market for EV batteries once the cost of battery-backed renewables falls below the cost of a grid connection. And once that does happen, power grids worldwide are going to rapidly enter a death spiral as their fixed costs are spread between fewer and fewer users.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#24

Post by sjwright »

threeseed wrote: post #15
sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

> with no serious competitors Seems to be a different story in the US versus Europe. In Europe they have a lot more competitors either with cars now or coming soon e.g. VW ID3, VW Polestar 2, BMW i3, Honda e, Peuegot e-208, Renault Zoe, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Kona EV, Mercedes EQC400/EQS, Audi eTron, Jaguar I-PACE etc. Tesla has largely had the market to itself but now you are seeing much higher quality cars with only…

Most of those are either quirky and compromised or simply not (yet) available in serious quantities.

I'm personally looking forward to the Hyundai/Kia models, as they seem to be closest to getting the formula right—enough range, enough power, enough fit and finish. Once the cost and supply of batteries is "solved" they could dominate the economy segment for a while.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#25

Post by vvanders »

sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

Tesla still doesn't have a rival in charging network or software.

Having arrived at more than a few broken chargers the former is going to give them a lead for a good while.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#26

Post by 693471 »

sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

You people are so obsessed over door handles. It's a hysteria.

They're fine.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#27

Post by lettergram »

sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

I suspect Tesla knows their space fairly well. Until there is a car that can go 400 miles on a single charge and recharge in 2 minutes, with cheap repairs and work well in all weather conditions for a decade or two, you won’t see the masses jump on EV. You may see people in cities (often these are more affluence).

I don’t really see EV becoming wide spread (I.e. ~50% of the market) for at least 10-15 years. Even then, power prices will spike at homes. I don’t even want to imagine what that’ll cost.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#28

Post by sinistersnare »

ajross wrote: post #13
sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

> The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Plug-in electric sales in 2018 were up 61% over 2017, which was 51% higher than 2016 (via quick wikipedia check). What numbers would you want to see before calling that a "boom"? How much higher than 60% growth does something have to have before it's not "strangled"? I think that's silly. Clearly these things are going somewhere. Production at all levels is adapting…

Your argument reminds me of this (relevant) XKCD comic. https://xkcd.com/1102/

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#30

Post by throwawaycert »

barry-cotter wrote: post #20
Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #12

Do people really build mines with a 5-year horizon? Of course it's going to outpace demand... initially. The great thing about mines is that you can just leave the lithium in the ground if the current prices aren't right.

If you try and time the market at horizons greater than five years when that’s your startup time from planning to production sometimes you’ll win big and sometimes you’ll discover you’ve made a genuinely awful investment. With a ten year turnaround time you could easily have the technical, social or economic environment just destroy the viability of your investment. Imagine you’re investing in a new city somewhere in…

The point is more to not try timing the market. There are all sorts of things one could reasonably say about what would be right or wrong for these unstable areas, but fundamentally the most long term good would be if they could engage in slow but steady development of both their natural resources and their infrastructure. I'm quite confident lithium will continue to be quite valuable for at least a generation. Remember, we still use NiMH and even NiCad batteries in some cases. Even if science has already discovered the magic new battery chemistry that will replace lithium ion, you're most likely looking at 5-10 years before the very first commercial applications come about.

I don't remember exact context, but I recall a long time ago someone was talking about shipping medicine and such to a particularly poor area of Africa, and the reply was basically "There are no roads here to ship the medicine on."

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