Electric vehicle war, is gas soon to be toast?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Fair point, but I really think what you are pointing out is more of a mid-transition problem. Optimizing EVs will happen once they are widely adopted; 'society' simply isn't there yet.

Also, as SP pointed out the market or 'society' isn't there yet. Until they get over range anxiety, I would submit that the EV manufacturers are committed to the inefficiencies.

Random but, somewhat related aside:

A buddy of mine works for Zoox. There is going to be a crossover in the near future where autonomous cars really start to question people's relationship with car ownership vs "car as a service" and what a car actually 'is' or even looks like. Once that happens, the range anxiety becomes moot.

And then what happens to resale value.....

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I think we're taking past each other. I'm not disagreeing, I'm saying there isn't a market for it yet. These are new and supply constrained so there is no economical model because everyone who wants one can afford the longer range and that's where the margin is. Give it 5-10 years and I think you'll see those models. Until about 3 or 4 years ago there was only Tesla or Nissan Leaf so it'll take a bit.

Not sure I agree that there isn't a market for it yet...EVs have the longest wait times right now (demand > supply). The devil is in the details of the supply constraint...presumably a lot of it has to do with converting general production and the ongoing chip shortage, but battery materials could easily become the next bottleneck if those issues resolve:


https://evannex.com/blogs/news/raw-m...on-ev-adoption

As one barrier falls, another comes into view, and now all automakers are finding themselves to be production-constrained, as anyone who has recently tried to order a new EV can attest. This is a temporary situation—the large automakers have access to plenty of capital, and the more forward-looking among them are converting production lines to build EVs, and planning to build gigafactories to secure battery supplies. Within a year or so, they should be able to whittle down the waiting lists.

So, what now? Many industry observers believe that raw materials represent the next major obstacle to the EV transition—and this roadblock may require much more time to clear.

As Dr. Qichao Hu, founder and CEO of Massachusetts-based battery maker SES, recently told Charged, “It takes about 2 years to build a new battery gigafactory, but it takes at least 8 years (sometimes more than 10 years) to build a new lithium mine.”

Contrary to the flood of silly articles warning that lithium will become “the new oil,” there’s plenty of the light white stuff—it’s the 25th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and it’s found on every continent. The problem is not availability, but the time required to scale up production. “Most of the large producing lithium mines around the world already have their offtakes committed to 2026, and the other junior mines have yet to go through exploration, feasibility, permits, and are many years away from production,” says Dr. Hu.

Other critical materials also face shortages. Commodities analysts are sounding warnings about graphite, a critical mineral for battery anodes. Again, there’s plenty of graphite out there, but the supply chain for battery-grade graphite isn’t adequate to meet the surging demand. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence predicts that a looming graphite shortage could “push out the timeline for wider integration of electric vehicles.”

Two more pending pain points are nickel and cobalt. Tesla has been sounding the alarm about nickel for some time—last year, it signed a deal with BHP, the world’s largest nickel miner to obtain sustainably-produced nickel from Australia. In January, the automaker inked an agreement with Talon Nickel to buy quantities of the metal from a mine the company is building in Minnesota.

In the short-term it makes sense to maximize return on the limited production. And I can see why manufacturers might be keen to move towards a max-margin made-to-order model, but there could also be big potential from taking a different approach.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Not sure I agree that there isn't a market for it yet...EVs have the longest wait times right now (demand > supply). The devil is in the details of the supply constraint...presumably a lot of it has to do with converting general production and the ongoing chip shortage, but battery materials could easily become the next bottleneck if those issues resolve:





https://evannex.com/blogs/news/raw-m...on-ev-adoption







In the short-term it makes sense to maximize return on the limited production. And I can see why manufacturers might be keen to move towards a max-margin made-to-order model, but there could also be big potential from taking a different approach.

The devil is in the details though. Even if you cut the battery in half, and therefore now have half the range, you've only cut maybe 15% of your costs. While the battery is the most expensive part of ev manufacturing, it's still only about 20-30% of the total cost. That's also ignoring that an ev battery is an assembled good. Cutting half the capacity of the battery doesn't really cut half the cost because a good chunk of the cost of the battery is bundling cells into modules, and modules into the pack. So after the battery reduction you still have a vehicle that's quite a bit more expensive to produce than it's ICE competitor and now your offering low range to a customer base who's primary concern is range.




Electric vehicle cost breakdown (uses 2020 numbers which have changed a fair bit)

https://insideevs.com/news/444542/ev...sive-make-ice/

Good summary of ev buyers concerns

https://www.deseret.com/2022/7/13/23...ng-range-price

[Street Pharmacist]

I'm probably just spamming the thread now, but I thought I'd give a quick summary of the evolution of EV batteries and where they're headed to show why I don't think battery life is an issue at all.

First up, a quick overview of Lithium ion batteries. As with all chemical battery cells, there's a Cathode and Anode (+ and -) seperated by a barrier that allows only lithium ions to pass through, with an electrolyte that the lithium ions are soluble in. The electrolyte is the organic part of the battery that actually burns when there's a battery fire.

Different Cathode chemistries will have different qualities. There are two main types:
-Ternary batteries have some mix of Lithium, Nickel, Manganese, and/or Cobalt in different ratios to give different attributes with regards to power output (think how quickly it can charge/discharge), energy density (how much room it taks up for the same amount of storage), and stability (thermal runway fires, heat output, degradation, etc). These batteries generally are much more sensitive to battery degradation, but better for vehicle performance.
-Lithium Iron Phosphate is much safer (very hard to start on fire), cheaper, and has a better degradation profile but is much less energy dense and therefore weighs more and takes up more space for the same amount of energy. It's mainly cheaper because China strategically poured their resources into the technology because they owned the supply chain for this technology and saw it as a way to dominate the market by making their preferred technology the cheaper and therefore most common one. It's much less sensitive to temperature and thermal runway, but less powerful so performance takes a bit of a hit.

Battery degradation is largely due to lithium metal forming dendrites on the anode which can puncture the barrier or cause shoirt circuits. This irreversibly damages the cell and leads to incremental loss of capacity over time. The most common reasons for these dendrites to form is fast charging, over charging and high temperature. Think of charging a battery like a filling an air tight container with water. As you get near the end you need a lot more pressure to squeeze that last bit in and it puts stress on the container. Keeping the battery always fully charged then will significantly increase dendrite formation so many EV manufacturers lock away some capacity. All hybrids do this and they go through a lot of full charge/discharge cycles. Newer ternary batteries have and expected life (to get to 80% of original capacity) of 1-3000 full cycles. this gives you some idea of how long these should last in the real world. Someone going from full to empty and back every single day would get about 2 to 9 years (or about before hitting 80%). No one really drives like that though so they should last much longer.


History:

The first real mass production EV was the Nissan Leaf and it debuted in 2010. It had a 117km range from an air cooled 24kWh battery that cost $1,200 per kWh to produce. This first generation only could charge at 3.3kW (ie every hour you're getting 3.3kWh) at home or 44kW at a CHAdeMO fast charger. The fast chargers were largely non-existent so charging was a bit of a nightmare. The other bad thing about this vehicle was that the chemistry was more prone to dendrite formation and had no active temperature management, just had airflow to cool it. As expected, there was significant battery degradation, especially in higher temperature areas like California, Arizona, etc. When you're starting with 117km range and you lose 20%, that's massive. There's used early Leafs still on the market with 50% range, sometimes even less. The head of Nissan just said that almost all their original batteries are still in their original cars, though I suspect their not really being used much with that low of range.

Next came Tesla with a newer NMC (nickel, manganese, cobalt) battery that had better performance and they used liquid cooling to increase the lifespan and performance of the battery. Many of these batteries are still in use with good capacity today. For example, there is a Tesla model S in Europe with 1,500,000 km that has only had two batteries (excluding a "loaner battery" for 95,000km after the first one). These batteries probably cost about $100 per kWh now for Tesla to produce and largely have no cobalt with just nickel and manganese.

The largest battery manufacturers in China were all in on LiFPO batteries and Tesla started putting them in all their Model 3's produced in China after their Gigafactory in Shanghai opened. They found that the performance wasn't too affected and the battery life was vastly improved while being significantly cheaper to make. They now use LiFPO for all Model 3's in China and Europe.

The Chinese manufacturers have made significant improvements in LiFPO batteries in the last couple years and now have much better densities and performance. CATL has found a way to incorporate manganese into LiFPO batteries to boost density by 15%. I think this is going to be the winning formula where LiFPO batteries see incremental improvments for most vehicles and NMC batteries are used for high performance vehicles. The holy grail is solid state batteries because they would use no flammable electrolyte and the density would much higher. Even if they solve it (which no one has been able to solve in a scalable way), it'll be a decade or more to see them used regularly. There are sodium ion batteries being worked on and many other chemistries, but none of them to date have shown the performance and scalability of Li ion batteries.

As for battery production, there's an absolutely massive and mind blowing build out. In 2010, global lithium ion production was 19GWh which was mainly used in consumer electronics. This year, the capacity is about 500Gwh. By 2030 that could be 6TWh or higher! I'm not sure most people have wrapped their heads around that absolutely massive number. The Inflation Reduction Act has spurred an even greater race to build baterry and mineral production in North America so that number may even grow.

I hope someone finds that a bit illuminating as to why battery life and perfomance will not be a reason EVs won't be better than ICE.

[kevman]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

As for battery production, there's an absolutely massive and mind blowing build out. In 2010, global lithium ion production was 19GWh which was mainly used in consumer electronics. This year, the capacity is about 500Gwh. By 2030 that could be 6TWh or higher! I'm not sure most people have wrapped their heads around that absolutely massive number. The Inflation Reduction Act has spurred an even greater race to build baterry and mineral production in North America so that number may even grow.

I hope someone finds that a bit illuminating as to why battery life and perfomance will not be a reason EVs won't be better than ICE.

Educating post.

Can you share more on how the mining industry will supply the raw materials to hit that 6TWh target? Are there enough projects in the pipeline to support that? That's a phenomenal growth rate for any industry.

[JagrBombs68]

We ended up getting an option to buy a Model 3 in a different color than we ordered - $2k upgrade but it meant we could get into it 3-4 months early. its been about a week with it and it is simply put an amazing machine . i realize this is very early - but we love it so far

I didn't know if i would like regenerative braking , but driving in residential areas and stop and go traffic it - i really like it

Too bad there isn't a big sub $60k EV SUV or Van out there - the R1S looks great but not at $100k+

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by kevman

Educating post.

Can you share more on how the mining industry will supply the raw materials to hit that 6TWh target? Are there enough projects in the pipeline to support that? That's a phenomenal growth rate for any industry.

That's the rub, in' it?



Lithium prices in 2010 were USD$5180 per metric tonne. In 2021 it reached $17,000. It's now over $60,000. Recently Musk tried to rally mining companies to the cause noting that lithium mining is about as cheap as minting money at this point. There's significant mining in the pipeline, but it's not enough and it takes 10+ years from assessments and permiting application to shovels in the ground.

Interestingly, Lithium is only 10% or less of the battery and the battery prices are still going down, so I don't think that'll slow down production too much. In fact, the ~63kg of lithium in a Tesla Model 3 still only costs $410 at those lithium prices. Meanwhile, the total production cost per car for Tesla went from $84,000 in 2017 to $36,000 this year (despite increasing their prices significantly!)

We'll need a lot more nickel and manganese too. There's more than enough lithium in the world as it's literally everywhere. The trouble is it's always in trace amounts, so you usually have to try to find and mine spodumene (essentailly dried up and "fossilized" clay), or use water in old sea beds and dry it up, but that takes a lot of land, fresh water, and power.

There's a really interesting new mine here in Canada called Snow Lake Lithium Mine that is trying to be Carbon neutral and environmentally safe (https://snowlakelithium.com/).

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by kevman

Educating post.

Can you share more on how the mining industry will supply the raw materials to hit that 6TWh target? Are there enough projects in the pipeline to support that? That's a phenomenal growth rate for any industry.

mining industry article says:
https://www.mining.com/canada-races-...ject-pipeline/

overview:
Canada has potential to bring on more new mines than the USA over the medium term. Canada has proposed $3.9 billion to support mining (Critical Minerals Strategy).

Three mines to open in 2023 with combined production of 50,000 tons / yr

additional info on lithium mining in Canada
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-...um-facts/24009

[para transit fellow]

EV Tracker

https://evfleets.electricautonomy.ca/ev-tracker/

"To keep our readers up to date, we present the Electric Autonomy Canadian EV Tracker. It’s our running tally of manufacturers’ battery electric car and light-duty truck model commitments, launches and planned dates of arrival in the Canadian market. Check back often, as we’ll be updating the EV Tracker regularly, while at the same time tracking new vehicle announcements and sales data in our regular editorial news coverage."

[chedder]

Man, that new Mercedes eqxx looks cool....unless you see it from behind. Woof.

[calgarygeologist]

If they got rid of that ridiculous rear diffuser tray it probably wouldn't be too bad.

[Street Pharmacist]

When people are looking for their next vehicle to be electric, they're looking for a vehicle not a spaceship. Why is this so hard to understand for the OEMs?

[DoubleF]

Wtf that looks like tow package meets sperm shaped bike helmet. Who designed that and thought it would be a good idea???

[Fuzz]

It's a concept car. The goal was range, partially through low drag. You may see some of these concepts on future cars, but this isn't for people to buy.

What it does show is the extent you have to go to to get really low drag, and its importance to EV's. Tossing things like roof racks and bike racks on EV's will really hurt highway range.

[photon]

Physics cares not for your sense of aesthetics.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by photon

Physics cares not for your sense of aesthetics.

Economics cares not for your sense of physics!

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It's a concept car. The goal was range, partially through low drag. You may see some of these concepts on future cars, but this isn't for people to buy.

What it does show is the extent you have to go to to get really low drag, and its importance to EV's. Tossing things like roof racks and bike racks on EV's will really hurt highway range.

Absolutely. It's such a different calculation for people to wrap their heads around. With ICE vehicles it's Hwy MPG > City MPG, but with EVs it's City MPG >>>>>>> Hwy MPG.

You can see that with the development and interest in cars like the Apterra. I'd never buy it, but there's lots of interest from early adopters. I still don't think it's a commercially viable pathway, but I see the appeal from a technology standpoint

[GreenLantern2814]

It sure seems like figuring out hydrogen would be easier than this battery strategy that relies on the super clean activity of mining.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

It sure seems like figuring out hydrogen would be easier than this battery strategy that relies on the super clean activity of mining.

Nope. Hydrogen is far less efficient and would still require all the mining

[Fuzz]

Hydrogen is a tough one, because it is like gas, but also like a battery. The benefit being no mining for minerals. The drawback being it only really makes sense to convert electricity to hydrogen when you have spare electrical capacity, which is rare(but a great use for it). Converting it from hydrocarbons doesn't make loads of sense. I think there is a use case for it, but I'm not sure it is in consumer vehicles.