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Interesting.

I just read an article yesterday talking about how lithium is going to get harder and harder to find, given all the devices that now require it. And when the batteries in these cars need replacing, it’s going to be difficult, to say the least, and very, very expensive.

I want to say that replacing the battery on a Tesla is upwards of $30k or more, if I heard Rush Limbaugh correctly. And then there’s the disposal of the old one.

” want to say that replacing the battery on a Tesla is upwards of $30k”

A place on the internet says around $12k average. Tesla warranties the batteries for 100,000 - 150,000 miles depending on the model. Tesla claims they’ll last 300,000 - 500,000 miles.

I want to say that replacing the battery on a Tesla is upwards of $30k or more

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As we just learned it is mistaken to imagine the Tesla battery is some large battery brick, instead it is a double metal sheet with thousands of linked AA batteries ... jiggle one lose, it falls and instant short.

If the engineers are talking about fuel cells and not any kind of exotic battery, then all this might be going somewhere. Some of the newer technology batteries have been the source of some mighty fearsome fires, that cannot be extinguished by conventional means, they have to almost burn themselves out.

The REAL infrastructure this nation needs is a whole new network of thorium-fueled molten salt nuclear reactors, densely enough located that EVERY portion of the nation is served, without the use of far-flung electric grids that may stretch hundreds of miles, and definitely with no reliance on wind or solar power, which at best can only fill a small niche in the overall power generation picture in a country as vast as the United States.

With this much electrical generation capacity available, there would be sufficient means to extract hydrogen from water in quantities to meet the mobile power needs of the nation, WITHOUT the exotic battery technology.

You want “green” power? It is within our means, technologically and economically, but to get it the electricity has to be generated at sufficiently low enough cost to make it work.

We need but the will to overcome some widely held but unfounded superstitions concerning all forms of nuclear power. We do not need unicorns and rainbows.