Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles? • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by vl » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

TeeMassive wrote: post #95

matsemann wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people shouldn't need to own a car. I don't mean that in a "self driving will save us" way. But that a personal car is parked 95% of the day. In a city huge areas are used for storing these blocks of metal not in use. More accessible car sharing could make less people feel the need to own a car.

Unless you have a family. It has to be there when you need it. Here in Québec we had an elected official who used to preach against cars and then once she got elected bought a SUV because, like everyone else with kids, she needed it for her family. The "you shouldn't need to own a car" attitude is arrogant and authoritarian in nature.

We essentially came to simple choice: less people, higher standard of living, more people, shittier standard of living.

Either choice will require unpopular measures, but at least let’s make the choice consciously.

I’m convinced “more people” way will lead to terrible authoritarian tyrannical society. So my choice is less people and cars are fine.

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

#292

Post by galaxyLogic » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

ambientenv wrote: post #125

jgilias wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory. In practice the market has spoken as to what kind of a form-factor people find the most useful for personal transportation in different climates and economic development scenarios. There’s no reason why ICEs couldn’t have supported the kind of vehicles some people imagine other people need. The market has spoken, EVs only started gaining traction when they started resembling actual cars in form and functio…

What if the market, often times a manifestation of social and cultural greed and ignorance (and acquiescence and conformity and manipulation), is wrong? What if the market, which has fundamentally brought us to the brink upon which we find our collective selves and is driven by short term profit motives, cannot be trusted to do the right thing for the sake of the future rather than the immediate or even near term? Wh…

What's kind of silly is the adulation of "market" as some kind of God. Talking about, or implying that "markets are always right" is a diversion, a red herring by those who are served by such "markets". We need markets (super and other types) but just because we need them does not mean they are an intelligent being who is "always right". Is Greed good? Is Greed our next God? I think it was proven in a movie already that greed is not good.

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

#293

Post by FatActor » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

This article is a great example of how to draw conclusions from changing data, and how to call out the sources of uncertainty at every turn. I think a few were missed based on the comments below but I don't think that was done out of nefarious agenda but rather an attempt to keep the essay short as the author seems to have done enough research that i trust they didn't overlook these second order implications.

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

#294

Post by rangersanger » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

fowkswe wrote: post #176

rangersanger wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our suburbs are designed for cars. Our cities are retrofitted for cars. That might seem pedantic but I’m not trying to be. The point is that we do actually have significant areas of population which are ready to be reworked to prioritize cycling without completely changing the way we live. Suburbs can also prioritize safe cycling. Take a look at bentonville Arkansas. It has a tiny downtown but most of it looks and fu…

Bentonville's core is vastly different from the surrounding suburb/exurb/metro area which is mostly 0.5+ acre lots built in confined subdivisions connected via 4-8 lane arterial stroads - typical American car style suburban planning. The damage is done, retrofitting this development pattern to suit cycling over F150 throughput is just not something that will be achievable in the Bentonville, or the greater US. I live…

Have you looked at what's happened in Bentonville in the last few years? The cycling infrastructure that's been built extends well beyond the core and does a remarkable job connecting the suburban style development with the downtown core.

They've built miles and miles of greenways and off street bike paths. I was there three months ago and rode all over town without once feeling threatened by auto traffic. Is it perfect? No, absolutely not. But I defy anyone to go there, ride their bike to commute around, and walk away thinking "getting around by bike in in the US is impossible."

I don't think Bentonville is repeatable everywhere, and it may even be a fluke, but it's certainly proof that it can be done.

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

#295

Post by olivermarks » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

gnopgnip wrote: post #289

olivermarks wrote: post #275

We cannot afford to ransack places like Chile to extract lithium for 'electric vehicles', which plumb new depths of pollution and third world degredation. The extraction of rare earth minerals for our electronically surveilled and controlled future comes at a terrible cost, as Siddharth Kara's new book "Cobalt Red: How The Blood of The Congo Powers Our Lives" outlines in excruciating detail. https://read.macmillan.co…

Lithium isn't a rare earth mineral or metal, it is the 33rd most common element on earth. There is a substantial cost to doing nothing and continuing the status quo

There is a very substantial cost to destroying the planet chasing after a toxic, highly inefficient and polluting alternative to ICE vehicles. Hybrid vehicles are clearly the answer. Tire pollution is a far more serious problem than tailpipe emissions.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/14/electr...

This scene is absolute madness https://twitter.com/siddharthkara/status/1611042107871080449

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

#296

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #221

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the problem that the car's that are parked 95% of the day are all moving at the same time in the last 5%? It feels like building a carless society is a lot more deliberate effort and requires a lot more public good will than electrifying what we have. That being said, it's probably the better long term goal.

If some strain of covid crops up that's way more deadly, maybe then we'll permanently transition to not hauling our butts around to stare at computer screens anyways.

Unfortunately there's still a lot of jobs that require said butt hauling.

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

#297

Post by 778hbff » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #257

778hbff wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heated seating doesn't need to turn my car into a smartphone. A reasonably simple stereo neither. Bascially what you could have in a car in the 70s. It would be interesting to know how much cost it would cut to leave out the hundreds of sensors and CAN bus stuff and phone-home interactive NFC magic. Less dev costs, less certification, less maintenance, less licensing.

A brand new with markup replacement of the head unit/smart stuff guts of an ICE car I had was ~$1,500 including labor . That core essentially ran Android with a lot of custom skinning and applications, so essentially a cheap Android tablet slightly hardened to handle the heat of a car parked in the sun. What does a set of 19" wheels cost? A set of tires to put on those wheels? The full brake assemblies? The ABS syste…

You seem to be completely ignoring the rest of the iceberg that this glorified screen rests on.

And no, not every car needs to have top-end leather heated fake-racing shaped seats. Some people just want to get from A to B and not everybody has a SWE salary/compensation like the slightly-detached-from-normal-people's-reality crowd here at HN.

Of course when I discuss this with a tech crowd I need to expect a tech-focused attitude. See it as a challenge .. I mean, some people write compilers that output only move instructions (still Turing complete) or build websites entirely running on solar power. Minimizing electronics in an electric car could just be another creativity-inducing restriction. Just saying "it can't be done" does not sound like real Hacker spirit to me..

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

#298

Post by rangersanger » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #274

rangersanger wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our suburbs are designed for cars. Our cities are retrofitted for cars. That might seem pedantic but I’m not trying to be. The point is that we do actually have significant areas of population which are ready to be reworked to prioritize cycling without completely changing the way we live. Suburbs can also prioritize safe cycling. Take a look at bentonville Arkansas. It has a tiny downtown but most of it looks and fu…

That is nice, but I wonder what the ratio of driving to riding bicycles is in Bentonville. I assume the residents still own cars.

Is improving cycling infrastructure thereby increasing miles traveled by bike a success? Or does this need to be completely binary?

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

#299

Post by sangnoir » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

gknoy wrote: post #287

wpm wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't conflate British Rail mismanagement with "trains are bad". Your trains are bad. America's trains are bad. They don't have to be. There is a disconnect here with you replying to someone who was talking about the ideal, with your reality. No one is saying train systems in a lot of places, right now, are perfect. We can make them more perfect in addition to moving more freight onto rail, doing more last-mil…

> Your trains are bad. America's trains are bad. They don't have to be. And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle. The odds of the US or Britain improving their rail systems in order for them to be more efficient/usable are vanishingly slim, to the point that we should likely bake their crappy nature into our assumptions of requirements. We can't even figure out how (here in the US) to build subway tunnels…

> The odds of the US or Britain improving their rail systems in order for them to be more efficient/usable are vanishingly slim, to the point that we should likely bake their crappy nature into our assumptions of requirements.

It's a matter of time: the political polar-opposite states of Texas and California are both working on high-speed rail projects, though they are rather unambitious in scope.

I'm curious if the dysfunction of British Rail is also related to the patchwork privatization like it is in the US. Is that still a thing? last I read, parts of the network - and/or trains - were owned or operated by a Virgin subsidiary.

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

#300

Post by FatActor » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #275

We cannot afford to ransack places like Chile to extract lithium for 'electric vehicles', which plumb new depths of pollution and third world degredation. The extraction of rare earth minerals for our electronically surveilled and controlled future comes at a terrible cost, as Siddharth Kara's new book "Cobalt Red: How The Blood of The Congo Powers Our Lives" outlines in excruciating detail. https://read.macmillan.co…

I agree with your sentiment and also understand that this won't stop the world's thirst for a commodity (see: dole bananas, hersey chocolate, all mined gemstones, and dinosaur juice). If we really are a global economy I would like to see proactive protections for these countries (like fair trade agreements) that guarantee environmental regulations are imposed and observed and that workers are fairly compensated and not exploited ... i actually think that might be possible if the the US and EU lead and lithium-block operations from more authoritarian companies with similar interests like china who have already taken over large parts of africa's mining operations through truly nefarious (IMHO) belt and road investment.