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?

#321

Post by matsemann » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:04 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #273

matsemann wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the authoritarian and arrogant attitude is from those thinking it's their right to drive everywhere at whatever cost to others. And you're missing the point. Why do you need a car because of family? Think further than your own nose tip. Wouldn't it be nice with a society where you didn't have to drive to do any little chore? And the few times you needed to drive, a care from some car sharing service was available…

> Why do you need a car because of family? Logistics. With a car the schedule is much more flexible and that is a major advantage when you have small children. Also with four or more people on board it's not really that terrible in terms of space efficiency. If you want to lower traffic/car ownership single-occupant vehicles are your low-hanging fruit, not families.

But could you imagine a future where you didn't need to bother with all that logistics? What if school, soccer practice and work were all in walkable or bikeable distance, for instance? I'm not advocating people to be forced to sell their cars, I'm advocating for moving towards a society not based around everyone having to drive everywhere.

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

#322

Post by matsemann » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

samastur wrote: post #217

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.

I use my kitchen not more than 1.5 hours a day on average. Not to mention toilet and bathroom which I use even less. I guess we should all live in two room "apartments" and rest be communal ;) I actually agree with you about better support for car sharing, but low usage by itself is not a particularly strong argument.

It is when in a city those cars take up huge amounts of public space.

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

#323

Post by brundolf » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

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 think this is wishful thinking. People's preferences aren't going to change overnight (I don't see a reason this one would change at all), and manufacturers are already making a tough sell with EVs themselves, so they'll cater extra hard to other familiar things people already want

The only way I see this changing is regulation, and that would be political suicide for whoever pushed it in the US (the main place where it would be relevant)

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

#324

Post by ok_dad » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #303

elefantastisch wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grid-powered public transit replacing 80% of trips by personal vehicle.

This is the sort of elitist fantasy nonsense promoted by the WEF that completely disrespects the average person and family.

European families seem to do OK using public transit.

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

#325

Post by someNameIG » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #303

elefantastisch wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grid-powered public transit replacing 80% of trips by personal vehicle.

This is the sort of elitist fantasy nonsense promoted by the WEF that completely disrespects the average person and family.

How is public transport elitist? If anything it's the opposite.

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

#326

Post by notahacker » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #299

gknoy wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.

Patchwork privatization hasn't helped matters and allows some companies to extract a bit of monopoly profit from a subsidised industry (the infrastructure remains nationalised, franchises are awarded to private companies for running rolling stock in certain regions routes for fixed terms, some companies were really struggling and had their franchises taken over the government and there are other quirks of the franchising system like franchises being required to lease rather than own trains and some services being mandatory to run, and prices are regulated).

But the root cause is that running rail networks is a hard problem: demand fluctuates from hour to hour and decade to decade more than the infrastructure can, optimisations for network efficiency aren't necessarily going to align with individual passengers' demands, when stuff breaks down a well-used part of the network gets cascading problems, governments have lots of other things crying out for more subsidies (and a purely for-profit network would be smaller and thinner). The UK also has older than average infrastructure and very expensive and occupied land right where new lines are most needed, although other countries are cursed with geography which is more challenging in many other ways

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

#327

Post by 778hbff » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #310

778hbff wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-focu…

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

> You'd have a hard time meeting emissions requirements

Not sure what emissions you are thinking about from an electric car that needs regulation circuits. You know, the thing I'm talking about. (And that I'm still claiming could end up vastly simpler than ICE cars if we only tried).

But in any case, in absence of a good faith basis to a discussion, it doesn't seem worthwhile for either of us to continue it.

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

#328

Post by tomtheelder » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

keneda7 wrote: post #270

tomtheelder wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for starters Sacramento is just a really poor example. Most of CA isn't. It's a consequence of hyper aggressive SFH zoning (~80% of the SCAG area is SFH, used to be even higher) and the era in which CA grew being the mid century period. There basically aren't any properly transit served and walkable areas in Sacramento. Closest would be Midtown and Richmond Grove, but they aren't really very good at all compared…

Again just like the other poster you are trying to move the goal posts. The comment did not say some. The comment said "the fact that America's most walkable and transit-accessible neighborhoods are also the most expensive and highest demand". I provided a single example that proves this statement is not a fact. edit: comment not commit

I don't have a metric for in-demand, but as I said, they are amongst the most expensive on a per-sq-ft basis, which is a much more useful metric for "expensive" than total cost. I didn't move the goalposts at all.

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

#329

Post by slow_typist » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:24 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #264

slow_typist wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you can do it on scale and with a very high recovery rate of 90%, after 7 cycles half of the lithium is gone. Given the massive environmental effects of the mining and the relatively scarce reserves we need to allocate the metal very carefully. It should not be used to maintain a broken business model IMO.

Where does that 90% figure come from? The state of the art appears to be 99%.

99% in a lab, if you are very good. 90% IRL (on industrial scale) is my educated guess given that you have losses in the whole reduction network and diminishing returns in the extraction process.

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

#330

Post by manscrober » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 7:26 PM UTC

hellweaver666 wrote: post #234

wpm wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- two cargo bikes, each ridden by each adult - layers, and canopies for aforementioned e-bikes - train Of course, speaking in the ideal. Just because the car has been the only option for so long doesn't mean it's replacement has to replace every trip either.

I'm a family of five, three kids and my wife and I and we commute around using this method all the time. I do on average 20-30km per day on week days and a little less on the weekend. My 12 year old son bikes along side me on his own bike. If it rains, we put on waterproof clothes. As the Dutch say "we're not made of sugar!". When we need to visit another city (or other parts of Europe) we jump on the train!

EVs might be less efficient, but not by multiple orders of magnitude. A google search indicates about 5.8 to 125 Wh/km per person. I don't think traveling with trains changes the overall travel time by much, even though they do go faster, and a Tesla with 2 people will probably use about 100Wh/km per person.

I think bicycles certainly have a place in the Netherlands, with actively car-hostile policy, a very high population density and hardly any distance longer than 300km; but any nationality that enjoys their personal space will probably be better of with something else.

I do wonder if rails or road are more efficient ecologically and economically. I've been wondering about smaller-and-slower-than-airliner planes or even eVTOLs, since they don't need a lot of infrastructure and the physics are surprisingly efficient. The technology isn't there yet but sooner or later I don't think flying is a bad idea. A small 4-seater airplane uses about 10-20 liters of fuel per 100km at faster speeds and more direct travel than a car, and if legislation allowed barrier-less mass-use and thus mass-production, planes wouldn't cost much more to the end user.