Originally posted by eshmun
OK here is a devil's adovocte answer of sorts to your questions in no particular order.
The term EV revolution is an emotive term that is promoted by stock pushers in the technology metals sector IMO. I live in this world as well and can see the uptake of Li ion batteries. They are not a new invention, not even close. The way some people carry on is as if they were invented yesterday and are the greatest invention since sliced bread, far from it. The Li-ion batery was invented by American physicist Professor John Goodenough in 1980, an apt name, because batteries of all types, since I was a young boy, have not been "good enough". They don't hold charge for long, are slow to charge, comprise of toxic and unpleasant materials, are created through production routes that are also polluting and generally unfriendly and they create problems when it comes to disposal and or recycling. The green revolution which is often also cited by the proponents of EV and by technology metals stock peddlers is also a misnomer. Sure an EV can remove pollution in the form of smoke, particulate matter and greenhouses gases from millions of pollution centres that we call cars but in terms of carbon emmisions it really depends on the energy source back at the power station that replaces the energy that would otherwise have been burnt in the form of fuel. I can see the impetus for people in large cities to want to have EVs as smog is a serious issue in some of these places but unless a change solves all problems and comes at a price cheaper than the alternatives it will naturally be resisted thus creating a limition to its own uptake and rate of spread.
Suddenly because the technology has advanced to a stage that enables the production of batteries that can hold sufficient charge and have a charge density to drive a car many people just automatically assume we are going to see major overnight distruption like that witnessed at the turn of the 20th century when the model T-Ford transformed the streets from horse poo covered streets to frenetic and bustling highways. What many people fail to consider is that there are many limiters to the rate of uptake/spread of EVs. I'm not saying we won't see replacement but I suspect it will happen more slowly than most people think which would give raw material supply ample time to catch up. Are people in the western countries really going to abandon cars they have recently bought to rush into buying expensive EV that still have draw backs in terms of utility and convenience? I look around at the roads in Australia and I already see a major transformation that has occurred, from old cars to new cars. I don't know the statistics about the age of the Australian or International car fleets but I would garner a guess that at least in Australia we have never seen more new cars on the road than we seen now. I assume this pattern is repeated around richer nations that have had the advantage of rising asset values due to the unprecedented level of debt creation and money printing by central banks that has gone on for the last few decades. People are not going to abandon these new cars for at least 5 to 10 years. The relatively new age of ICE car fleets in richer nations is a natural impediment to the rapid take up of EVs. There needs to be some aging of the existing ICE fleet before the attractiveness of buying new cars, any new cars becomes a big driver no mater the cost differential (which currently still strongly favours ICE over EV). Australia and other richer nations are also fast approaching the likely end of an economic cycle IMO with recession over due in places like the US based on the historical periodicty of such events. In all likelihood the demand for new cars of any type will soon wane along with economies. Growth cycles are normally followed by periods of bust. So that's one set of potential and natural impediments to the rate of growth in the EV car market. You see despite the good will and stated intentions of governments, if economies aren't booming, the words of governments mean nothing as they don't drive the spending patterns of consumers or their sentiment, ie how rich or otherwise they are or feel they are. Maybe in China a central government can drive change through government policy but in the west governments can't drive major changes unless consumers are behind such change and act where it counts, from their back pockets .
I haven't even touched on the elephant in the room when it comes to limiting the rate of EV uptake, ie the powerful energy lobby in the US. The US is run first and foremost by the elite banksters and a close second by that other evil bedfellow, the energy companies. Good luck convincing US consumers that EV are the way of the future. That would be akin to asking them to stop eating American pie and asking them to start eating sugar coated sushi, not going to happen while the oil lobby holds sway on the American economy and American politics.
I can keep going explaining more pedestrian reasons which have the potential to limit the speed of take-up of EV's, but by no means less compelling reasons. I've mentioned some of these reasons before. Car companies believe it or not are actually businesses that need to make profits to fund themselves and future innovation and development. EVs need to work to make these businesses profitable. We know Tesla is really still a pipe dream funded by bubble stock markets and cheques written by the banksters. Every car maker embarking on the path towards making and selling EVs is taking on risk. Risks which are common to selling new products into any market, ie meeting price points for the market segment in which that product competes which allow that product to gain market share, overcoming and supplying products that meet the markets satisfaction and don't fail in some way, ending in recalls and loss of profit etc etc or disappointment to consumers due to a comparative lack of utilty or convience, as already mentioned.
Layered on top of all of this are other emerging battery techologies that might have potential to disrupt lithium or compete with lithium. As mentioned before Sodium is abundant and much cleaner to produce from and scientists have shown that it is capable of holding high energy densities of the same magnitude as commercial Li batteries in EVs being produced today. Then you have more advanced materials like graphene that can be made into supercapacitors also with high energy densities with the added advantage of very rapid charging times. Any of these types of technologies could take a sudden leap forward and suddenly become a distruptor to lithium itself. That's the problem with innovation, once you set the dogs loose you don't know in what direction they will run.
You also have the prospect of recycling of Li-ion batteries. Currently the cobalt component is being recycled but battery companies are already talking about and working on the closed cycle recycling of lithium which if successful would become another natural limiter to the raw material supply side. There is also the problem of the scarcity and troubled locations where cobalt is mined. Increasing prices of cobalt act to increase the price of batteries, another potential mechanism for self limitation of the demand for lithium batteries. Then you have the opposite self limiting effect of increasing demand for lithium batteries themselves. The demand for batteries will tend to increase as prices fall but battery prices can really only fall if they are cheaper to build. One of the ways to reduce costs is to get the cost of the raw materials down. As I've speculated in the past the downstream battery producer cartels want cheaper raw materials as it helps to reduce the cost of batteries hence helping to increase sales. The downstream battery producers business model works on reducing input costs (ie the price they pay for lithium oxide) thus increasing the sales of batteries (ie the sales of LCE/hydroxide which is what they actually make money from). As long as the profits from increased battery sales exceeds decreasing profits from lower battery prices the down stream cartels will be happy. There is a natural impetus for these cartels to get their input costs as low as possible even if it means they corner the lithium miners into zero profitability. If they can do this they will just buy the mines at fire sale prices and run them either for zero profit or at a loss. Remember most of the iron ore (magnetite) production in China runs at a loss to feed local vertically intergarted steel mills. The Chinese, Koreams and Japanese don't view profits as the overriding drivers when it comes to the commodities industry. National goals and policies are often bigger drivers than personal or public company profits.
Just some food for thought in what is an already confusing sector. Esh
Very interesting post eshmun. I notice you do not mention the large capacity Vanadium Redox batteries. Do you not see some potential there.
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