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The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

bloomberg.com

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Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#41

Post by Sabinus »

vvanders wrote: post #25
sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

Tesla still doesn't have a rival in charging network or software. Having arrived at more than a few broken chargers the former is going to give them a lead for a good while.

How exclusive is the Tesla charging network? Is it available to use for other brands of electric car?

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#42

Post by Sabinus »

ironfootnz wrote: post #29

Kinda useless build up. More material are been used to build dense battery and they don’t use only lithium as major source for these new types of batteries.

No competing battery chemistry has been proven to work at scale. Plenty of research in the pipline, but no breakthroughs that scale so far.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#43

Post by Sabinus »

yarg wrote: post #11
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #9

This is no big deal. Prices will tank and an equilibrium will be reached. This kind of stuff happens all the time when supply lags demand and then catches up and you have a little bit too much supply.

You also have to consider the percentage of the market controlled by China. Look at what they've done with their control of rare earth metals. Artificial scarcity and resource hoarding is something that needs to be considered.

But China doesn't have control of the lithium market.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#44

Post by m0zg »

kurthr wrote: post #39
m0zg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last month you ate one doughnut, this month you ate two, so month-to-month growth is 100%. Is your consumption of doughnuts booming? To say that it is, I'd need to see doughnuts replace a significant portion of your calorie intake first. Toyota RAV4 alone sold more than all plug-in cars combined.

Actually, the RAV4 is on track to sell only 450k total this year, while plug in electrics are on track to sell 3.5M. http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/toyota/toyota-rav4... Tesla alone (S, X, 3) will probably sell close to 350k (~85-90k/q), and they are not more than 10% of total EV.

I meant in the US. In comparison all Tesla models sold 192K last year, for a marketshare of a whopping 1.1% (information is also from carsalesbase). It's funny that you're comparing US sales for Rav4 (just one of half a dozen popular Toyota models), with worldwide sales of electrics, and then extrapolate Tesla figures even though we're in the middle of the year.

Out in the real world very few people can afford a $45k+ car.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#45

Post by dabeeeenster »

Sabinus wrote: post #41
vvanders wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla still doesn't have a rival in charging network or software. Having arrived at more than a few broken chargers the former is going to give them a lead for a good while.

How exclusive is the Tesla charging network? Is it available to use for other brands of electric car?

I have a Nissan leaf. When I talk to people about it, it amazes me how many people think anyone can use the Tesla network. Noone other than Tesla cars can!

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#46

Post by sq_ »

lettergram wrote: post #27
sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

I suspect Tesla knows their space fairly well. Until there is a car that can go 400 miles on a single charge and recharge in 2 minutes, with cheap repairs and work well in all weather conditions for a decade or two, you won’t see the masses jump on EV. You may see people in cities (often these are more affluence). I don’t really see EV becoming wide spread (I.e. ~50% of the market) for at least 10-15 years. Even then…

Even if people's home power bills spike, they'll still save plenty of money by not paying for gas. In parts of the US, a decent commute will cost one $200 to $300 in gas a month, and charging an EV off the grid for the same range will cost a lot less.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#47

Post by [deleted] »

sjwright wrote: post #22
joe-collins wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a robust charging network is a third dependency. You need to have a garage, or commute to someplace with or near a charger. Down here in San Diego (East County), I don't see a lot of the latter.

It's a dependency for dominating the entire vehicle market, but it's not a dependency for the substantial slice of the market with access to off-street parking at home. That's probably at least 10–20% of the market right there. Add to that the slice of the market with access to off-street parking at work which can be retrofitted for charging. As EV sales grow, car parking will adapt and recharging will be bundled int…

[deleted]

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#48

Post by Causality1 »

xxpor wrote: post #33
Causality1 wrote: post #4

I would've been very excited about this back in the halcyon days of being able to carry spare batteries for my phone and laptop.

I bought a laptop with a replaceable battery, RAM, and HDD this year. A Lenovo T480. Most people don't have to buy a MacBook (outside of iOS dev).

Good choice, since it's the last one which had the feature. The T490 drops support for removable batteries.

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#49

Post by F_r_k »

693471 wrote: post #26
sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

You people are so obsessed over door handles. It's a hysteria. They're fine.

They're expensive

Re: The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boom

#50

Post by bryanrasmussen »

ajross wrote: post #13
sjwright wrote: post #10

The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Electric cars are still deeply strangled by two key factors: industry inertia and the cost/supply of lithium batteries. Once those two factors are solved (and a build-up of lithium mines is key to that) electric cars will go from being a niche within a niche to utterly dominating the market very, very quickly. Within the next decade we might see companies like Hyundai…

> The electric car industry hasn't remotely boomed. Plug-in electric sales in 2018 were up 61% over 2017, which was 51% higher than 2016 (via quick wikipedia check). What numbers would you want to see before calling that a "boom"? How much higher than 60% growth does something have to have before it's not "strangled"? I think that's silly. Clearly these things are going somewhere. Production at all levels is adapting…

yesterday I had a dollar in my pocket, today I have 2 dollars. Dollars in my pocket is booming right now. But relative to amount of dollars I have or that in the world, not so much. So I think other statistics would be more useful to determine quality of boom.
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