Illalong,From what I understand, it is based on the assumptions...

Illalong,

From what I understand, it is based on the assumptions they make about the mining and processing of the raw materials, the nickel and the lithium in particular.

Taking nickel ( where most of the raw material cost is) as an example, obviously you get a high CO2 content if you take 1% nickel ore from Indonesia with a high strip ratio (using a lot of diesel) and process it in a coal fired Chinese economy. If instead you take high grade nickel sulphides from UG mining in WA, smelt it in Kalgoorlie (gas) and refine it and produce battery grade nickel sulphate at Kwinana you”ll get A vastly lower CO2 content.

I suspect that Feathers boffins used something like the former, whereas with battery purity requirements the later is much more likely.

It’s a question largely of whether you get your raw materials inefficiently and from a high carbon economy or from a more efficient one using more gas and renewables. Nothing inherent about the CO2 embedded in battery manufacture. Even for lower CO2 nickel the content will lower further as UG mining electrifies and miners rely more on gas or renewables for their electricity.

Your carbon payback time (eg 8 years) will also be higher if you assume your electric car uses German coal fired electricity rather than say Norwegian hydro, French nuclear (or of course German wind).

If one doesn’t know what the couple of boffins did, then promoting their summary as gospel is imho unadulterated BS. EVs will be huge (unless civilisation collapses), no other technology anywhere near ready for rollout.

EL