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Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

hannahritchie.substack.com

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Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#21

Post by stby »

bertil wrote: post #10

This article and the IEA sources that they rely on assumes that an EV is a car. That’s not a good assumption: electric bicycles and trikes like the Aptera are much better direction for the vast majority of individual transport. At that size, you can rely on smaller batteries and solar panels for many journeys (it isn’t fully sufficient for an Aptera but an e-bicycle with a small roof can ride as long as the Sun shine…

I agree with anything you said. At this point I'm already happy when the media doesn't try to praise drones (Volocopter, Lilium, Joby, ...) as the ultimate solution to our traffic problems, unfortunately.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#23

Post by imachine1980_ »

snarfy wrote: post #8

Sodium ion batteries work just as well and should be arriving this year [1]. [1] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-top-ev-battery-mak...

Sodium ion batteries are less dense than lithium have a third of the range, I'm live in argentine and see the destruction of open mining for rare metals for cents, make me wish this happens, but for now dense electric cars of not low range will probably use lithium and smartphones and notebook probably will continue to use lithium for long time, maybe be replaced by graphen but in the long game.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#24

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

snarfy wrote: post #8

Sodium ion batteries work just as well and should be arriving this year [1]. [1] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-top-ev-battery-mak...

Given that they still have lower energy density and fewer charge-discharge cycles, I'd say we can be optimistic for the future but we can't currently claim that they work "just as well".

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#25

Post by malfist »

bertil wrote: post #10

This article and the IEA sources that they rely on assumes that an EV is a car. That’s not a good assumption: electric bicycles and trikes like the Aptera are much better direction for the vast majority of individual transport. At that size, you can rely on smaller batteries and solar panels for many journeys (it isn’t fully sufficient for an Aptera but an e-bicycle with a small roof can ride as long as the Sun shine…

Aptera is a thing again? I remember reading about it when I was in high school over a decade ago. I thought they smashed their prototypes and went bankrupt?

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#26

Post by rootusrootus »

Manuel_D wrote: post #20
rootusrootus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is an interview with Siddharth Kara that suggests all lithium batteries contain cobalt and thusly depend on child slave labor That is demonstrably not true. AFAIK the majority of EVs use LFP batteries that have no cobalt. The current RWD Model 3 in the US also uses LFP. That's the direction most EVs will probably head over the next few years.

Lithium iron phosphate are not widely used in EVs. They gave poorer energy density, so lithium ion is preferred. I think electric golf carts use LiFePo batteries, to keep costs low and because range is less of an issue.

The vast majority of EVs in China use LFP, and China has most of the EVs in the world. And even in the US, by volume I wouldn't be surprised if the RWD Model 3 is a reasonable fraction of total EV sales.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#27

Post by bryanlarsen »

Manuel_D wrote: post #20
rootusrootus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is an interview with Siddharth Kara that suggests all lithium batteries contain cobalt and thusly depend on child slave labor That is demonstrably not true. AFAIK the majority of EVs use LFP batteries that have no cobalt. The current RWD Model 3 in the US also uses LFP. That's the direction most EVs will probably head over the next few years.

Lithium iron phosphate are not widely used in EVs. They gave poorer energy density, so lithium ion is preferred. I think electric golf carts use LiFePo batteries, to keep costs low and because range is less of an issue.

Most EV's in China use LiFePO4 batteries, and China is the largest EV market.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#28

Post by consp »

jacknews wrote: post #5

"It’s easy to imagine that decades from now, the chemistry of batteries will have changed so much that they will use two, three, or four times less than today." It's easy to imagine, but is it even possible? My understanding is that the lithium is the charge carrier, and while there is some room to improve efficiency, less lithium means less capacity. OTOH, it's quite possible that, eg, sodium batteries become viable…

How do lithium-sulfur batteries weight in on this? They have the (theoretical) 2-3 times the wh/kg capacity compared to li-ion.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#29

Post by trabant00 »

bertil wrote: post #10

This article and the IEA sources that they rely on assumes that an EV is a car. That’s not a good assumption: electric bicycles and trikes like the Aptera are much better direction for the vast majority of individual transport. At that size, you can rely on smaller batteries and solar panels for many journeys (it isn’t fully sufficient for an Aptera but an e-bicycle with a small roof can ride as long as the Sun shine…

> Using three tons vehicles for long-distance journeys or for the transport of goods isn’t efficient: trains (and last-mile delivery on cargo bikes) are a lot more economical

That sounds intuitive to me but the fact that train tickets are so expensive on long distances (more than twice than if you travel alone in a car) makes me think it's not the case.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#30

Post by dumbfounder »

Can batteries be created to make the process of reclaiming the lithium orders of magnitude easier?

A completely different topic: Politics tends to focus on forcing consumer vehicles to go electric, is this really the right move? Most cars are not driven a lot in a day. But cars that are used for work (fleet, uber/deliveries) are used much more, so the benefit to them being electric is far greater. Trucks too most likely. Shouldn't this be where we focus our attention to get the best bang for the buck? And also make sure we don't drive the price up making it more expensive for the vehicles that are driven much more? Imagine the scenario where lithium prices are driven up by legislation-borne demand, we would instead have more cars with less lithium, and thus less range. Maybe that's ok, I dunno. That said, more electric cars means more and better infra and tech that will be created. So obviously some good stuff. Life is so complicated.

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