The metal resource needed to make all cars and vans electric by 2050 and all sales to be purely battery electric by 2035. To replace all UK-based vehicles today with electric vehicles (not including the LGV and HGV fleets), assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation NMC 811 batteries, would take 207,900 tonnes cobalt, 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium, in addition to 2,362,500 tonnes copper. This represents, just under two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and 12% of the world’s copper production during 2018.
This says that to replace every single car in the UK with an EV, you need two years worth of Cobalt.
The target is 2050. Yeah, we can’t mine enough to make 36 million EVs in one year. That’s why we’re making them over the next 20 to 30. Then suddenly, the “almost twice the annual world cobalt production” becomes, even if we take 10 years as an example, 20% of the annual cobalt production. Which granted, is still quite a lot, but that’s assuming that we replace every single petrol/diesel vehicle in the UK within the next 10 years, which already is a stupid assumption since no one who’s running a petrol car will immediately buy an EV at the deadline. New ICE cars are banned, people can still drive their current ones that they bought new in 2029, and they can run it for a decade or more.
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The worldwide impact: If this analysis is extrapolated to the currently projected estimate of two billion cars worldwide, based on 2018 figures
This one’s particularly stupid. It’s not going to be 2 billion cars. There’s 1.4 billion vehicles (including trucks) currently, somehow in the next few years that’s gonna increase by 50% and on top of that, we replace every single car worldwide despite only a few countries actually banning them. Everywhere else, EVs will certainly grow in market share, but they won’t be the only means of transport available.
And then, of course, there is the electricity required to power all these electric vehicles. Building wind farms to generate that much would require more copper and more dysprosium, and building solar farms requires yet more high purity silicon, indium, tellurium, gallium.
I forgot. There’s no other means of electricity generation other than Wind and Solar.
If anything, you’re making a point for removal of all wind and solar farms since a few nuclear reactors would solve those problems much simpler, without any of the drawbacks that wind and solar have (like having to have vast energy storage to counter less breezy days, and not having sun at night – which require even more of them expensive batteries). Modern nuclear reactors and infrastructures don’t produce much waste, some of which is even fuel for other types of reactors. And we have reactors already, it’s not like in germany where you have an uphill battle against an absolutely idiotic green party and nuclear reactors are outlawed.
Prices have increased by 500% in the past year. Car prices will follow.
Much like Silicon in 2008, when people argued that solar power is unscalable (not “doesn’t scale well”, but “impossible to scale”) because of the price of Silicon.
Yet here we are, a decade later, with panels being less than a third per watt than they were in 2010.
This is alarmist at best, not to mention, has basically nothing to do with your original argument claiming this:
One huge factor is the raw materials needed for ev’s are limited and there’s nowhere near enough on the planet for cars currently just in the uk to be ev’s, never mind the world.
Here’s what those articles are. Nonsense. The articles assume (falsely) that either A: immediately all cars are EVs (“A 20% increase in UK-generated electricity would be required to charge the current 252.5 billion miles to be driven by UK cars”). What kind of argument is that? That we, right now, don’t produce enough electricity to power the amount of EVs projected for 2050 – all charging at the same time? Or B: all cars in the world (and then some) are becoming EVs, which of course is bollocks too. Russia, the africas, south america, the middle east, most poorer countries basically most of the world won’t follow suit (yet, your articles argue as if they do). Ignoring the fact that there isn’t even an alternative to some things like lorries and busses, without electrification of the road. There’s no usable battery powered lorry. The ones “available” currently like the DAF CF have a whopping 155 miles range, which means they can make 300 miles per day. Assuming that the hundreds of lorries every hour can actually all charge at service stations, which i very much doubt (they require 300kw chargers, too – and at least 25-50 per service station).
Its easy to argue with numbers that have no basis in reality. The timeframe goes to 2050. That’s almost 30 years from now. That’s the projection for full electrification in the UK. That’s 36 million electric vehicles in 28 years (which, again, includes commercial vehicles/lorries which so far are exempt). That’s what, 1.3 million cars a year? That’s already just a quarter of annual EV production. And we literally just started mass production, this is going to ramp up significantly over the next decade.
We certainly can have an honest debate about the environment, but straight up front, i don’t think that the average citizen has more responsibility than “not being wasteful”. Cars of course do pollute, but even with NOX (where people went ape over), cars produce a whopping 12% of it in the UK. Total. The entirety of the transport sector (all lorries, busses, cars, vans, motorbikes, trains – everything) contributed 24% to all green house emissions in the UK. Now you replace every single car with an EV, and it’ll drop to what, lets say, 10%. Great. At great cost to the environment and population, we basically achieved barely anything. 21% of total greenhouse gas comes from the electricity sector (which of course will increase, be it directly or indirectly through production cost). Remove gas/coal, add nuclear reactors, and ding, you already did vastly more for the environment than by replacing all cars with EVs. 30% of all greenhouse gas from business/agriculture. 16% residential. A household creates as much greenhouse gas as a car, but yet, we build infrastructure, ravage the planet for material to replace cars with EVs – and ignore the much, much worse issues.
Hell, here in wales (and i bet in other parts of the country too), you could just start by electrifying the trains, rather than having them burn diesel.
Sorry, nah. This is fear mongering, based on numbers they pulled out of their nose because it makes the argument look strong. If you actually look at the numbers, it might be not “easy”, but far from impossible or even a challenge.
And, closing, lets be real. All this is just virtue signalling in the first place. Action was needed 10 years ago. Increasing pollution to mine etc for EVs for the next 25 years isn’t actually helping. As in, literally, it doesn’t do anything to combat global warming. For that, decisive action would’ve been needed, 10 years ago, and not just the automotive sector but more importantly business and energy sectors.
If this sounds aggressive or something, i apologise, this isn’t meant as a personal attack.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.