Banter and general comments, page-13813

@Drumo
Thank you for the heads up that something expensive existed within the Aluminium/Graphene process. I'm not going to lose any sleep around this battery option going mainstream in the near future.

The word Graphene doesn't trigger alarm bells - that is until you start googling the price of it and get some prices references that are more expensive than gold (Gold is about US$56/gram).

Google is not always 100% reliable but it is often ball-park correct. Below are two references to Graphene being to US$100/g (or $100,000/kg). This would likely put the cost of a single EV battery in the million to multi-million USD range. Its price makes Hydroxide at $0.08/g or $80/kg seem positively cheap. Battery stats are basically irrelevant to mainstream EV's if you use products in quantity that have crazy prices.

Given the multi-kilogram quantities that would be needed for an EV battery with a sensible range, the price of the Graphene needed would need a fundamental step-change shift in price for it to be economic in any sort of EV, except perhaps a concept car or a multi-million dollar super-car.

The price would appear to be what it is because a "better" production technique involves heating a mixture to a plasma state (6,000 - 10,000 degrees) to then create a micrometres film (1/1000th of a mm). A new production process would be needed to get a suitable Graphene price point.





https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=21330#:~:text=Currently%2C%20the%20production%20cost%20of,carbon%20at%20%2415%20per%20kilogram.