In view of the mess that has resulted in the auto industry from computer-chip shortages, IMO an interesting topic to discuss will be the possibility of an even worse Lithium shortage for EV batteries. Much of the current supply comes from Bolivia and surrounding countries, and, as with other commodities, China is attempting to control as much of the supply as it can.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwin...h=74b17403363e

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/d...d%20Chance.pdf

 

Lithium can be mined in many places. Tesla is building a large mining operation in Nevada which can supply all of its US factory needs. I hear nickel and cobalt are very difficult to acquire and those may have a shortage for EVs.

 

Does Tesla mine those materials themselves or do they outsource it to contractors? Just curious, seems odd that they would want to do it themselves although I could see them owning the mines.

 

It takes 5-10 years to bring a mine online and become productive. In addition to lithium, there is simply not enough copper to meet the electric car demands of the future. I read somewhere that an EV uses 3 times more copper than an ICE vehicle. No new copper mines planned. Explains why copper prices tripled over the past couple years.

While legislation can require more EV, greener blah blah, etc. in reality those laws will be watered down and reversed.

Although Ford is promoting their EV roadmap heavily, read the fine print, most of what they want to do won't happen until 2030.

I don't see much change with EV's until solid state batteries become mainstream. We will be stuck with 200-300 mile range, and many hour charge times.

 

^^^Good points, chuckNX

I had forgotten the copper-shortage. Theft of copper parts, in fact, has been wisdespread for the last several years.....just ask any plumber. Chances are that he or she has themselves ben ripped off, and/or parts stolen right off of their trucks.

 

The semiconductor chip shortage was caused by incorrect forecasting, natural disasters (flooding and fires), outsourcing of a highly complex process, politics and the cost of new fabs (both time and money).
It was not a raw material issue.
But I agree, short term thinking just may be giving the business (and power) to someone else.

A corallory (maybe bigger) issue is all the EV and AI naysayers and politics who may be giving away these 2 products to China as we speak.

 

CATL supposedly has made a sodium battery, and they expect mass production by 2025, which should be in time to avert a massive shortage of Lithium. They say it's currently at 160 Wh/kg, which is not terrible, and plans to increase energy density to 200 Wh/kg. That should be doable for economy cars with shorter range. In comparison the current Tesla NCM batteries have about 250 Wh/kg.

 

The current spec of the 4680 coming out is 350-380 Wh/kg so there is definitely new stuff coming out. However, Lithium may not even be the bottleneck as nickel may also be in short supply. Does the sodium battery use nickel?

 

Watched CNBC today at lunch and they had a segment on Lithium and other minerals in Afghanistan. Apparently Afghanistan has multi trillion dollar value of deposits of minerals, and (not surprisingly) China is attempting to align with the Taliban in an effort to access them.

 

Regarding copper, not only is copper required for the EVs, but a lot of copper is going to be required if we are to get any substantial upgrade to the electrical grid. All the electrical cables are copper.

Regarding lithium and other components that compose the chemistry of a battery - as is Teslas sold in China have different (inferior) chemistry, requiring bigger, heavier batteries to have the same range as US models. https://nickelinstitute.org/blog/202...s-performance/

 

pretty interesting recent video i just watched on this subject: