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France to 'ban all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040'

The biggest challenge facing electric cars is not the cost or oil but the availability of lithium needed to drive them. Here is an interesting article

https://www.ft.com/content/90d65356-4a9d-11e7-919a-1e14ce4af89b?mhq5j=e1


A year ago, Tesla Motors founder and chief executive Elon Musk quipped that lithium was only the “salt on the salad” for the batteries that are vital to the US company’s electric cars.

Prices for lithium carbonate, used in the cathode of a battery, have more than doubled since 2015, according to consultancy CRU.

This week a representative from Volkswagen told a lithium conference in London that supplies of lithium and cobalt, another battery metal, are of the greatest concern to the carmaker, according to people present at the event. In April BYD, the Chinese electric car and bus company part-owned by Warren Buffett, said it was talking to lithium producers in Chile about potential deals to secure lithium supply.

Dr David Deak, chief technical officer at Lithium Americas, who formerly worked as an engineer for Tesla, says the lithium market needs to grow from its annual production of 182,000 tonnes to an average of 3.1m tonnes for 20 years to electrify the world’s fleet of vehicles.
 

Theonik

Member
That's funny because we can produce oil in 1 continent and use it on another one.
Electricity on the other hand...
We can. But we don't need to, since both Europe and the Americas have ample energy generation options. Electricity can even be imported as well as exported.
Though energy is one of the few remaining bastions of Mercantilism I suppose
 
Article is behind a paywall.. They talk about ramping up the production of lithium more than thenfold.. But how large is Earth's availability of it?

Worldwide identified reserves in 2008 were estimated by the US Geological Survey (USGS) to be 13 million tonnes,[43] though an accurate estimate of world lithium reserves is difficult.[85][86]
 

Fliesen

Member
What are you basing your wild opinion on?

The fact that there's a good number of countries that have way more ambitious goals (2025) and the fact that i feel that by 2040 it'll actually be the manufacturer's who will have mostly phased out cars with IEC anyways.

It's a good plan, an important plan, way better than doing nothing, but it's not the most ambitious goal - however, maybe more of an achievable one.
 

Theonik

Member
Lithium supplies might be seen as a concern but there are other technologies that can be used and car batteries will likely be widely recycled. There is always the alternative of hydrogen cells as a means of storing energy for electric cars though.
 
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