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?

#181

Post by malfist » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:25 PM UTC

apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #34

malfist wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Their homepage is claiming up to "40 miles of solar powered driving per day" and "1,000 miles on a single charge". Even given the size and layout of the vehicle, that seems impressive as heck if true. It's in reservation stages for ~$26k, which is also not bad.

When I was in college, the car was being advertised as 100 MPG. The car looks virtually the same, if you can get 100MPG you can probably get insane ranges without huge batteries.

It's basically a motorcycle on three wheels, those things have great milage.

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

#182

Post by jgilias » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

jgilias wrote: post #86

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…

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…

Answering to my own comment to answer the broader discussion.

- I’m not from the US and I’m not talking about the US market;

- I don’t believe “the market” provides some value judgement. Rather, it’s just the aggregate behavior of people under their existing realities. We can and should aim to change those realities, but ignoring them because “they’re wrong” will not yield workable solutions.

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

#183

Post by syntaxing » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #141

syntaxing wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s put aside the fact that a state of the art gasoline engine is about 20% efficient and an EV is about 50% efficient if you include power delivery deficiencies if we use non renewable fuel sources. What you’re stating is an infrastructure problem, not a specific EV problem. Genuinely would love to see literature how a EV increases the total carbon increase compared to a ICE vehicle.

You don't need an academic paper to see how much carbon is used to actually manufacture a lithium ion battery that is mined versus recycled domestically in the country the car is produced. Just follow the supply chain in how the mining process works for typical batteries today. https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufac... !

An average sedan from production to driving within its life time produces 38 metric tons of CO2 emissions compared to 16 metric tons as quoted by your article for the battery. I still fail to see how an EV is by any means dirtier than a gas car.

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

#184

Post by vidarh » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #110

CalRobert wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is profoundly distorted by single use zoning, parking minimums, density maximums, wide (and high speed) stroads, and other urban design choices that force long journeys. It's also not safe to be on an ebike surrounded by electric Hummers, F-350 super duties, and your normal "whole kindergarten class in the blind spot" Escalades. Having just spent a week in Utrecht it's very clear that "the market" can cert…

What's your justification for saying that it's the US with a profoundly distorted market and not places like Utrecht?

Everywhere is distorted. As such it's meaningless to insist one or the other is preferred - it's down to an environment heavily influenced by policy. As such, choices can change if policies change.

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

#185

Post by mikestew » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #175

mschuster91 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it's not just the people who decide who gets elected. Like it or not, the chances of winning an election highly correlate with advertising budgets, and the fossil fuel and car industry has sunk dozens of billions of dollars in campaign contributions, (S)PAC donations and other legal and illegal forms of bribery to make sure their interests were taken care of.

>Like it or not, the chances of winning an election highly correlate with advertising budgets, This is just BS/lies at the local level. Moneyed PACs aren't fighting it out over councilor, selectman and planner positions for random suburbs. Pretty much all the money these candidate dispense is either self raised or comes from an official political party who don't really doll out meaningful amounts to these elections

As one who has run for local office in a Seattle-area suburb, yeah, there's no oil industry money sloshing around. At best one might get a few local businesses (at best), and some individuals for small amounts. If you're the big swinging genitalia incumbent, you might even be able to afford yard signs without dipping into personal funds!

One would seem to win local elections by being the incumbent, and knocking on a lot of doors.

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

#186

Post by jollyllama » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

saint_fiasco wrote: post #178

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…

Those other kinds of ICE vehicles are supported in poorer markets. In the Third World people use motorcycles and scooters and so on all the time, for all sorts of things. If lithium becomes scarce, electric vehicles become more expensive. An increase in the price of vehicles produces a similar effect to a decrease in people's incomes, so the market would push people towards smaller vehicles just like in the Third Wor…

UK and USA have some of the lowest rates of motorcycle usage in the world, they're part of the transportation solution in almost every other nation more than they are here.

It's just never considered because the types of people working on policy in this area aren't motorcyclists.

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

#187

Post by malandrew » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

DLwdTxdU6smHQA wrote: post #89

imachine1980_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Sodium ion batteries are less dense than lithium have a third of the range Got a source for the "one third" part? According to [1] and [2] lithium ion is up to 265 Wh/kg and sodium ion has 160 Wh/kg. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/30/catl-reveals-sodium-ion... edited for clarity

What is the energy density by volume?

Which is more important for cars? Weight or volume?

I would imagine that volume ultimately controls how much you can fit and that weight just negatively affects range of you have too much.

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

#188

Post by Gordonjcp » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:46 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…

> trains (and last-mile delivery on cargo bikes) are a lot more economical in both energy, accident risk and individual time

This works if you live in a perfectly flat country with completely contiguous landmass and no islands.

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

#189

Post by notahacker » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:46 PM UTC

prottog wrote: post #180

notahacker wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The form factor of a motorbike has been around and more affordable than a car for a century now. I don't think it's the type of engine that makes the majority of people in the developed world prefer to spend substantially more money on vehicles which are considerably more stable and crash resistant, enclosed from the weather and with room for passengers and cargo. If they get e-bikes, they tend to get them as well wh…

> living in a country with one of the densest (but still entirely unsuitable for most long distance journeys) rail networks I'm very curious, what country has such a dense rail network that isn't very good for long distance journeys? Is it because it's in a hub-and-spoke system with the capital/largest city as the hub, and if you want to go from spoke to spoke it sucks?

The UK. Lines interconnect all over. But that doesn't mean connections are possible when you want them and don't involve time padding and risk of not making them and sometimes completely illogical routes, and even with one of the world's highest densities of stations many places people want to go to don't have a station particularly nearby or a last mile solution that isn't a taxi. And no matter how good the end-to-end connections are, they're not suited to any journey involving non-trivial amounts of luggage. Compromises you may have to make include adding extra hours or overnight stops to journeys, taxis for the last mile or twenty, not having more than one bag's worth of luggage, or spending a lot more money than the equivalent journey by car even without the taxi/hotel bills. And not travelling at all when the rail workers are on strike, like today

There are certain things train services are excellent at, like serving people's daily commute at predictable times into a congested city centre (with the caveat crowded trains aren't necessarily a pleasant experience) and letting you travel whilst drunk or putting the finishing touches to your presentation, but they're not going to eliminate many of the most common uses for cars.

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

#190

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jan 05, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #147

rootusrootus wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your justification for saying that it's the US with a profoundly distorted market and not places like Utrecht?

How about the fact that America's most walkable and transit-accessible neighborhoods are also the most expensive and highest demand? People want this kind of development, they flock to it, and they are willing to pay astronomically high prices to get it. The government keeps the supply low with exclusionary zoning that makes all types of construction except car-centric single family housing illegal.

That may be true in some places, but I'm skeptical of any causal relationship. To use Portland as a example familiar to me, the urban area is the least wealthy. The most expensive, exclusive neighborhoods are around the edges and have awful transit service. Looking at bigger cities, what's a better example? You certainly don't move to Manhattan just because it's walkable.