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from the getting-a-charge-out-of-minerals-speculation dept.
Will there be enough to build all the electric vehicles?
Global demand for cobalt and nickel, two of the essential elements in electric car batteries, has never been higher. But where do all those metals come from? And do we even have enough for our electrified future? The answers to those questions are getting increasingly complex.
Reuters and Bloomberg both have stories out today on the metals and, as Reuters reports, while demand for nickel keeps increasing, half the world's nickel supply is too low in quality to use for car batteries.
All of which is going to have seismic effect on the world's suppliers. In short: There will be winners and losers, and the winners will be the ones with the highest-grade stuff—not unlike, I suppose, the illicit drugs market.
Do you feel fearful, uncertain, and doubtful about the future of electric cars?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:27PM
Cars do not, nor will they ever equal watt/kgmile of public transport regardless of whether they are electric. The automotive market is a luxury market. Which is to say that having a car AT ALL, is a luxury.
In consequence as the available watt/person ratio goes down with population growth (all energy being ultimately derived from the sun, with the long term adjusted availability moving towards constant) public transport has to take up the slack.
I am not uncertain I know. Cars are on their way out, PERIOD. The bigger question is HVAC, since it reflects a larger watt/person usage than human transport. Cars are sexy, so everybody talks about them. But the truth is you could probably make a bigger impact on CO2 by simply legislating that all roofs be white.
Hmm.. A bucket of paint, or a billion dollar investment so that rich dicks can drive really fast human sized RC plastic toys?
Right! E-cars it is!