>It was a colossaly stupid idea.
Still is. Lithium batteries need to go away. There’s not enough Li on the planet to realize the greenies wet dream.
” There’s not enough Li on the planet to realize the greenies wet dream.”
“Carbon and steel are also featured. The lithium content is actually a small amount by weight, and contributes a correspondingly minor part of the cost of Li-ion batteries. Our batteries really should be called nickel batteries,” said Georgeson.
For now, Tesla is definitely not worried about lithium availability, Georgeson confirmed. “There are more than enough reserves of lithium world-wide to serve the growth of the battery markets, including Tesla’s projected needs,” she said. “Even if we wanted to build 10 or 20 Gigafactories, we would not have to search beyond the known reserves that can be economically mined.”
Tesla also expects to source an increasing amount of the material through recycling as battery production ramps up. “The Tesla Gigafactory will incorporate onsite recycling,” Georgeson said.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Why-Lithium-Isnt-the-Big-Worry-for-Li-ion
Current EV’s are the compact fluorescent bulb of vehicles, a flawed stopgap on the way to something that may work better,