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

Gas might cost more without subsidies. Car ownership in cities would cost more to pay for parking. Roads outside of cities would be paid for from local taxes. Trucks would pay more because they damage roads much more than cars, which would encourage rail and boat transport. Etc.

It's not a free market if these things are being paid for by all taxpayers, including those who don't drive, or don't drive as much.

There are roughly 1.4bn cars in the world for 7.8bn people... so most people get around without one.

You can see it if you travel a bit, in India and China you'll see families getting around on bikes and scooters. Over 1/3 of the Dutch use a bike as their primary means of transportation. People often cite weather as a reason not to, but if the Finnish can regularly use bikes to get around (another European country with high bike use)... nearly anyone can.

Electric bikes are more unsafe than motorcycles ! This is irregardless of infrastructure (eg. I checked stats in Netherlands which is cyclist utopia according to HN).

I used to ride a motorcycle but I would never actively encourage someone to start it - it's just irresponsibly risky. If you chose to do it regardless (like I did) that's your choice - but me advocating it is like promoting smoking or alcoholism/drug abuse.

Around town at low speeds (therefore drag is negligible), size becomes an asset, and a small motorcycle or scooter can get very good fuel economy, assuming it doesn't have an insanely overpowered engine.

An electric motorcycle or scooter around town is extremely efficient.

For example, the Arcimoto (https://www.arcimoto.com/) gets 5.5 miles/kWh.

The Aptera (which blurs the line between motorcycle and car) gets 10 miles/kWh! By comparison the Model 3 (the most efficient current mass market EV) gets 4 miles/kWh.

Yeah the stuff it rests on such as the frame, the suspension, the wheels... That's the vast majority of the cost of a car. What sensors are you thinking about that add supposedly many many thousands of dollars to the cost of a car? Backup sensors aftermarket, at retail, can be had for $20. Mobileye sells aftermarket ADAS kits for installed, at retail. What do you think an automaker moving a million of those a year pays per unit?

Tear out a all of those computers and sensors from a $35k car and....now you're at a $33k with a lot of the comfort options removed.

Which part of the iceberg do you imagine makes up the majority of this cost? Which seems to be the most expensive part: the Android tablet, the $200 worth of sensors, or the couple thousand pounds of metal called the frame?

Could you ship a car without many computers on it? Sure, maybe. You'd have a hard time meeting emissions requirements without some kind of EFI though, so instantly there's a computer there. Same goes with needing to have some kind of EGR system to once again meet emissions and fuel economy standards. Then, you're going to have a hard time having a purely mechanical ABS, which without you'll get incredibly poor safety scores. These days a backup camera is required in the US, so you'll need some kind of display and a camera.

Like, sure, one could make a car without many computers in it. It wouldn't be radically cheaper than cars with computers in it, it will probably perform worse and have fewer comfort features. The only real selling point would be "hey, its a basic car!"

You probably wouldn't sell nearly as many units as the big auto makers, as I really doubt it would be as popular (for example, why isn't the Mirage the most popular car in the US?). This means your per unit manufacturing costs would be higher. In the end I imagine such a vehicle would actually cost more in the market than less as some of the big costs like safety testing would amortize over a much smaller fleet of vehicles.

Even the Aptera, an incredibly stripped down car, is estimating ~$25k base.

Lets take the Mirage for an example. ~$16kUSD for the extreme base tier. Tear out the computers, the motor, the transmission, we're probably at like $11k. Now add in a 45kWh battery pack at ~$151/kWh so ~$7k, and we're at ~$18k. Add a drive unit/charging system for another few grand, and we're at ~21k. Starting price for the Bolt, $27k, and that comes with all those fancy "make the car a smartphone" features. And if we price it with the Bolt's battery size (60kWh) it gets even closer.