The Real Reason Affordable Electric Vehicles Are Failing In America

From the article:
My professor at the time told our team, "Pick any two; affordability, performance, or range, you cannot have all three with EVs."
I think this rule fails because there are no affordable, high-performance (0-60 < 6 seconds) BEVs and no affordable, long-range (300-mile) BEVs.

 

I cannot give this story any credibility. It may be completely true, but there is nothing here besides the author's statement that production is limited because of battery availability. No verifiable sources are cited. I could write the same article and state authoritatively that the root cause of low sales is low gasoline prices or lack of advertising or any number of other factors.

 

The article referred to here is buttressed by this:

""We only mine a relatively small amount of lithium today. In 2023, we'll be using more for batteries for EVs and storage than what we mine today," said Elsa Dominish, a senior research consultant at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney and a co-author of the book's chapter on metals used in clean energy. She explained that companies will need to come up with a lot more cobalt and lithium to meeting the growing demand for EVs. To limit the amount of mining that needs to be done, companies could recycle old EV batteries."

https://www.popsci.com/electric-cars-destructive-mining-metals/

The problem is that increasingly the world is emulating the American model of automobile dependency. And the exploitation of the Earth to feed that dependency is destructive for all life. There is no free lunch.




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A prediction for four years from now does not validate the statement that sales today are affected by battery shortages.

 

If batteries supply is a problem (and Lithium really is so bad for environment), why don't manufacturers focus a little more on PHEVs until battery supply/technology gets better? It looks like they try to kill them as much as they try to promote them (which is very nearly none).

 

The majors are really waiting for new battery technology. Solid state batteries would be vastly better than current lithium ion batteries, but no one knows when they will be suitable, maybe 7 years or so.

 

Two things. Tesla also views mineral shortages as a serious constraint in the near future. As a manufacturer, I might be reluctant gearing up production now, knowing that in the near future higher prices and/or reduced supply could curtail production. Particularly as we move to light and heavy trucks that will require massive batteries.

Second, the extraction of cobalt and other minerals is often barbaric- in terms of exploitation of third world native cultures, working conditions, etc. While this may be economically sustainable, it is not politically or morally.

But yes- as of right now, other than higher prices, there does not appear to be immediate shortages in the supply chain.

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Demand isn't limiting the EV market, production is. More specifically, sales trends are dictated by production limitations due to the high cost and limited availability of lithium-ion batteries.

 

The fundamental flaw in the article is the assumption that certain resources, such as lithium or cobalt or EV batteries, are only available in fixed quantities. That's true in the short term, but in the long term, increases demand causes supply to increase. That's basic supply and demand economics.

It's true that in the short term, EV battery supply is lagging significantly behind demand. That's a consequence of exponentially increasing production of long-range BEVs. But supply is lagging behind only by a couple of years or so; it's not a long-term supply problem.

Furthermore, if there's a long-term shortage of a particular mineral or raw material, then industry reacts by figuring out ways to make products using alternative resources. Case in point: The amount of cobalt in EV batteries has decreased significantly over the past few years, and some cell chemistries now avoid its use altogether.

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Well, "affordability" is relative. What's "affordable" for someone who's rich or comfortably well off, may not be "affordable" for the blue-collar class or the working poor.

It's true that there isn't a single long-range, street-legal passenger car BEV model sold in the U.S./Canada today at a price of the top 10-12 best-selling cars (not including light trucks): ~$28,000 or less. But that's because the tech is still so new. Gasmobile manufacturers have had more than a century to figure out to make them cheaply. Give it a few more years, or at worst a decade, and we'll see street legal, 200+ mile range passenger car BEVs sold in first-world countries at a price under $28k. Both experience and economy of scale will continue to bring prices down.

 

Not all battery makers use cobalt from the Congo, where children are subjected to economic slavery and forced to work in inhuman conditions which will damage or ruin their health. For example: Panasonic, which until very recently was Tesla's sole source of EV batteries, goes to great effort to ensure there is no "conflict zone" cobalt in the mix coming from its suppliers.

So let's not accept the anti-EV FUD that use of cobalt equals economic slavery or equals children being forced to work in inhuman conditions. There are sources of cobalt other than just the Congo.

Please note I'm not suggesting Lowell Greenberg is a FUDster. I'm just pointing out that the attempt to equate EV batteries with "conflict zone" cobalt, and thus the attempt to equate EVs with exploitation of children for labor in inhuman conditions, originates with anti-EV FUDsters, and is continually promoted by them. Let us please not help them with their agenda!

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I stand by everything I wrote nine months ago. Tesla is also now considering using cobalt free batteries in China- probably driven more for cost savings than human compassion.

An EV over its lifetime, will emit less CO2 then an ICE car. But there are a number of mitigating factors including the electricity source, driving patterns, efficiency, etc. I do not need to be an apologist for cruel practices, to also recognize the benefits of EVs.

EV's are not a moral crusade. BIllions of cars polluting around the world in states of traffic and pollution whether ICE or EV is an industrial age anachronism that will by necessity die- soon.

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