When the very first cars were built, only the rich could afford it, but now a large part of the population (in developed countries) has one or more.
What do you think will be such an evolution in the future?
When the very first cars were built, only the rich could afford it, but now a large part of the population (in developed countries) has one or more.
What do you think will be such an evolution in the future?
Not unless they come up with some new kind of battery tech. There’s simply not enough lithium for a global mass adoption of personal electric cars.
I wouldn’t worry so much about that. I mean, I am sure battery tech will improve because companies will want to sell the car with the longest range, but in terms of lithium supplies, it is not scarce and it is recyclable.
You’re wrong.
There’s about 1.446 billion cars in use on earth and 26 million tons of global lithium reserves. Even if we immediately extracted all that and divided it between all the cars that gives each car about 34 pounds of lithium.
A Tesla, relatively small and lightweight for a car, has 138 pounds of lithium in its battery.
So there’s enough lithium in the whole world for a little under one quarter of the cars we have now if they were all tiny little sports coupes.
Nothing for busses, ships, trains, trams, bikes, mobile phones, computers, power tools, appliances, grid storage, home generators, the list goes on.