"An emergent class of vehicles being produced could very well...

"An emergent class of vehicles being produced could very well change the future of the automobile industry. Commonly known as Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEV and PZEV), almost every major automobile manufacturer is strategizing and poised to cater to the emergent demand for these higher fuel efficiency and less polluting vehicles. The underlying and differentiating technological component that makes this class of vehicles a viable, sustainable, and successful alternative to the solely gasoline powered internal combustion engine [ICE] automobile of yesteryear is the lithium-ion (li-ion) battery pack. The unique chemical properties of lithium, mainly its low atomic weight and its ability to ionize or lose electrons (i.e., electronegativity) make it possible to produce li-ion battery packs that are high in energy density, power, and spatial compactness relative to older generation lead acid, nickel cadmium, and nickel metal hydride based battery systems.

Introduction

The global market for li-ion batteries has been increasing by more than 20% per year in the past few years (Ober / USGS, 2007). According to the USGS, li-ion and lithium-polymer batteries appear to have the greatest potential for growth. The world market for these rechargeable batteries was estimated to be $4 billion in 2005. Recently, Tesla Motors (Tesla Motors, 2008) started commercial production and delivery of their first ZEV, a solely battery powered roadster.

I believe that with the re-advent of the Battery Electric Vehicle [BEV] and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles [PHEV] slated for commerical delivery in 2010 (autobloggreen.com, 2008), the demand for lithium and lithium compounds is expected to soar exponentially from, what I believe, present near saturated production levels thereby straining domestic capacity. This hypothesis is based on consumption and prices of lithium and lithium based compounds for use in existing applications such as laptop and cell phone batteries remaining firm for the foreseeable future, and finding emergent uses in BEV / PHEV production.

Relative Future Demand

I would like to walk you through a simple exercise that will make you feel the potential demand for lithium based materials needed to make batteries to power the next generation of automobiles. The li-ion battery packs designed for ZEV / PZEV are complex systems that weigh between 400 - 1,000 pounds. Exactly how much lithium material is there in these li-ion battery packs is probably proprietary information, and it may be difficult to gauge that amount. Lets begin with something we do understand; a 15" Macbook Pro made by Apple Computer (AAPL). This sleek laptop is equipped with a 60-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery pack capable of producing 85 Watts (18.5 Volts dc X 4.6 Amps) of power to run the laptop for approximately 5 hours. The li-ion battery system in the Tesla roadster on the other hand contains 6,831 li-ion cells and is designed to produce 200 kW of peak output power, but due to heat, drag, and friction efficiency losses, peak output is actually 189 kW at 8,000 rpm (teslamotors.com, 2008).

To produce 200 kW of peak power, the 375 volt li-ion battery system (Berdichevsky et al, 2006) will therefore need to draw on (200 kW X1,000 W/kW / 375 V) or 533 Amps of current. A simple ratio of the quantity of maximum or peak current required to power the roadster (533 Amps) and the laptop (4.6 Amps) tells me that the amount of lithium ion needed in the vehicle is (533 Amps / 4.6 Amps) or 116 X the amount of lithium in the laptop (here X is the simplistic magnification of the amount of lithium based compounds in rechargeable li-ion batteries). Compound ~100 by an annual production of 10,000 or even 100,000 vehicles, then multipy the result by 10 major automobile manufacturers worldwide, and we are looking at an additional demand of millions of units of lithium based materials."

Kamal Ahuja resides in Sacramento, California, where he also works as an engineer on a full-time basis. He graduated from The University of Texas system with a MBA (Dallas) and a BS in Chemical Engineering (Austin).