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Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd
The cost of low volume production of EVs 'may' be cheaper than ICE vehicles. But when you scale up, input costs of materials for batteries will become astronomically expensive. Battery technology simply isn't there in terms of power density and there aren't enough rare earth materials for that volume.
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Actually it is very much the opposite. That’s the whole point of the “economies of scale” concept. Total Cost/Unit = (Fixed costs + Variable Costs)/Total Volume. The more you produce in a common process, the more you can spread fixed costs and reduce total cost. Look at Total Cost of a unit of Lithium (or Cobalt, or Nickel, or Oil). It’s roughly Total Cost/Unit = (Cost of operating a mine or rig + Cost of processing + Cost of transporting)/Total Units. At low volume, each unit produced carries the burden of the full cost to operate the mine or the rig, so that cost will drive the cost very high. Increase the number of units needed and you divide the cost of the mine or the rig to the point where it is attractive to operate it and maybe to even operate more mines or rigs. Lithium, cobalt and nickel are not rare. The volume is restricted by the ability to require enough demand to incur the cost to extract. There are rare earth materials that live up to their name and for those reasons are expensive even at higher volume. For most of these (neodymium, dysprosium, a few others) the good news is that the amount used per battery or per electric motor is so small, higher volumes of batteries or electric motors doesn’t break the curve. We’re talking milligrams, not pounds.
Extend the same economies of scale concept to electric cars. The cost of each of the minerals will at the very least stabilize, in some cases drop. Add to that the fact that energy density improvements in battery technology is improving in the span of months per development cycle, not the years that vehicles need. GM was near completion of development of Gen 2 Ultium batteries before the first Gen 1 battery hit the ground in a production vehicle. Not even sure what generation they are currently working on. Each generation seems to improve energy density and reduce GM’s cost / battery pack.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd
The same is true of solar and wind. Yeah, it sounds good, until you look at the storage needs to supply power when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, then you realize that we're nowhere close to the storage we need and we don't have the resources to create that storage.
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So on one side of the coin we have “what happens to all the batteries when they’re depleted? They’re gonna pile up in landfills. What does that do to the planet?”.
On the other side of the coin we have “there’s not enough resources to store energy collected by wind or solar”.
The irony is, the response to both sides of that coin is the same. There is a concerted effort to repurpose expired electric car batteries to be used as storage batteries for solar farms and wind mills. When batteries are no longer capable of the rapid charge —> deplete cycles required for use in electric cars, they are still perfectly suitable for storing energy from solar panels and wind mills and releasing the energy when required, thereby keeping those batteries out of landfills. That will be tempered a bit by auto manufacturers efforts to maintain control of batteries removed for warranty replacement (8 yrs / 100,000 miles). Those batteries will be used as core material for remanufacturing electric car batteries and for input into battery recycling operations where those rare earth materials will be reclaimed, reducing demand for newly mined raw materials.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyzz Kydd
Maybe when we start mining the asteroids we could make it work, maybe.
Nobody alive today will ever see a strictly EV future where regular middle class people can afford to buy cars that are anywhere close to the functionality we currently have.
The only thing that will change that will be a complete revolution in energy storage.
Back to EVs, the only one I would consider currently is the Corvette (hybrid) and my objections to it are purely related to trunk space. If Chevy decided to make a hybrid ZL1 1LE I would place an order right after I buy my wife the new car I owe her.
I considered the Ford Lightning, as I like the idea of being able to use it to power my house in an emergency, but unfortunately it can't haul an RV for long enough distances or do other 'truck like' things that I need. Stick an ICE in the 'frunk' and you would probably have a damn fine truck.
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Part of the reason I say I (and most of us on this thread) will be long gone before we are in a 100% EV world.