I worked for a company that converted petrol cars to full electric. It wasn't a bad place to work but I am in no hurry to buy an electric vehicle. Until the range/recharge problems are sorted out I'll stick to petrol.
Living with Electric Vehicles
- Thread starter Ridge Runner
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A lot of the population use scotters and betjaks/bimos in Indonesia. They have swap over battery-pack situations for the scooters - slide in, slide out. Probably one of the most practical transport solutions for a country where most people are young and most trips short..
Should be enough lithium for some time - not all that rare. World consumption is around 90,000 tonnes per year (although that will eincrease substantially) and reserves are around 25,000,000 (increasing each year). Lithium can be recycled from old batteries.
However battery recharge times. total range per charge and possibly fires remain issues. I will delay for now.
Retiree's historic quest to ride electric motorcycle from Perth to Sydney:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10...perth-to-sydney-is-australian-first/101546196
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10...perth-to-sydney-is-australian-first/101546196
Which shows why battery swap stations are critical.....recharge times can be hours otherwise. This is how long it takes to get back on the road at a battery-swap station in Taiwan. I can see this catching on in SE Asia...
Goodie I believe the other issue with ev is they don't have enough guts to pull the skin off a rice pudding. Mackka
"Ford in America recently began selling an electric version of its iconic F-150 pickup. Towing is one of the headlines with the F-150 Lightning, its capacity topping 4.5 tonnes – one tonne more than the best of the twin cab utes and Toyota LandCruiser in Australia.
Rival General Motors is going one step further with its Silverado EV to eventually be offered with a "max tow package" that can lug about nine tonnes".
Ability to tow is unlikely to be the issue (although most on sale in Australia at present are very limited). I think the issue will be how far you will get on a charge. EVs arte definitely being oversold too early in my opinion - I think they will get there, but I will hold off until I can see it.
It's the WEF pushing for net zero, here's what they have to say about Lithium.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/electric-vehicles-world-enough-lithium-resources/
So by the time a significant number of people have invested in lithium powered vehicles, we will be moving on to another source of power.
Lithium Is most definitely an interim power source. I wouldn't be rushing out to buy an EV that relies on this tech just yet.
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This article has more holes than a swiss cheese -the WEF is an international non-governmental lobbying organisation based in Switzerland (as a reaction to criticism within Swiss society, the Swiss federal government decided in February 2021 to reduce its annual contributions to the WEF).
They say "“Only a handful of companies can produce high-quality, high-purity lithium chemical products,” - it is not rocket science - more demand means more companies refining it (not a complex procedure) - just that so far there has not been huge demand. The RESERVES they quote are just that, measured reserves (the RESOURCES are many times that). Current reserves are sufficient to supply demand for 220 years at present (obviously the demand will increase enormously above present demand, but even at ten times the demand (as they predict by 2030) reserves still cover around 25 years - and of course increased demand means more RESOURCES are converted to reserves each year (resources at the moment equal an additional 25 years, but of course they will also increase annually). They don't mention lithium recycling, yet the article they use as their source of info says there is huge potential for lithium recycling (e.g. 75% of USA lead is from recycling nowadays). And they claim it took 16.5 years to develop past lithium mines, but of course that is because until recently there was limited demand and you don't become a big mine immediately producing a product that you can't sell - lithium mines can be developed far quicker than most other metals, which can take up to 8 years (new lithium mines take 8 months to 3 years). Greenbushes in WA is the world's largest producer and it started as a tin mine more than 100 years ago - it then started producing tantalum and finally started producing lithium in the late 1980s (around the same year as the first mobile telephone call was made in Australia), but there was little demand for lithium at that time - so you could argue that it took about 140 years to come on-line as a lithium producer. At the moment it can supply about a third of total world lithium demand from that mine alone.
Present reserves and resources of lithium are similar to what many would give the years remaining for oil at present consumption (of course that is just as unlikely to happen soon any more than it will happen for lithium). Am I worried that a car i get now might not be able to get a replacement lithium battery? No, because I will be dead before than, as will the car.
The price trend in recent years does not suggest that the world thinks it will soon be in short supply.
Seriously though, all resources are ultimately finite but lithium is not one at any great risk for our grandchildren at least. There is a geological reason as well for optimism. Metals tend to occur together as groups, say lead with zinc and silver, copper with gold, nickel with platinum, tin with tungsten. Half the world's lithium only occurs with no other significant metals of interest (a small proportion occurs with some tin and tantalum - the solitary Greenbushes mine just happens to be one of them). So there has been no interest in exploring for lithium in the past, unlike other metals (unlike say gold, which even at a low price was still produced as a by-product of copper-mining). Tin has only recently been of interest again since the 1960s when we stopped tin-plating cans and used plastic coatings instead. A lot of lithium occurs in completely different rocks than those that contain other metals (its only potential co-products include things like rare earth elements and tantalum, also only recently in demand). So we have not only not been exploring for lithium, we have not been exploring for metals associated with it, and in most case we haven't even being exploring in the rocks that can contain it. Discovery of a single new mine can dramatically change the supply situation (eg 94% of cobalt, also used in lithium batteries, used to come from the unstable DRC - a few years ago a new mine in WA started supplying 13% of world cobalt supply).
The worst one might expect is some short-term supply and increased price initially - in which case people will take longer to buy them and governments will take longer to push any changeover. But it should not be lack of lithium supply in our great grandchildren's lifetimes I would expect.
I think there are still enough issues with EVs that need sorting out before we resort to prophecies of running out (as has been done with petroleum all of my life)
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Okay then
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The recommendation on the F150 Lightning, when towing 1500kg, is to charge every 160km. It didn't say what the distance to charge would be when towing 3000kg but you could take a wild guess.
Yes that is the issue when putting load on the motor - more load, less km. There are so many issues not being discussed adequately, Note also that they recommend starting at only 90% charge to prolong battery life.
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Gavin of Garfield
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I think you have to consider the price over the life of a battery that is saving you 70% of your normal fuel costs (supposedly). I would like to see an accurate breakdown. And one does not have to buy a new replacement, you can get a replacement with 2 years warranty for just a few thou apparently, and they reckon they will last a number of years beyond that warranty.
Another factor will be how battery technology and cost change over the 7-8 years you have your first one under warranty. The EU is banning new hydrocarbon cars from 2035 and greater usage usually does lower cost of production. Mind you, I suspect that they will extend hydrocarbon cars longer in practice.
My Triton holds 60 litres of diesel. I get 10ks per litre. Thats 600 kilometers costing around $132 to fill up.
My question would be how much would it cost to recharge an EV to travel 600 kilometers? Is it really going to be cheaper or are recharging stations going to be free?
Most articles indicate similar charges and agree that you can save a further 50% above public stations by charging at home overnight.
https://jolt.com.au/cost-to-charge-electric-vehicle
If you get 10 km per litre from your Triton, you don't seem to be using it off-road? Not that this is relevant to your question.
https://jolt.com.au/cost-to-charge-electric-vehicle
If you get 10 km per litre from your Triton, you don't seem to be using it off-road? Not that this is relevant to your question.
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What about the fuel excise per litre they're going to miss out on. They've got smart meters on my power and water, so I'm sure there's a way to find out how many Ks you're doing , and charge you for them.
There are a number of positive and negative issues re other costs e.g. cost of physically replacing the battery as well as the battery, undoubted replacement of fuel excise charges by a km cost, some lesser maintenance costs. Which is why I said I would like to see a total breakdown.
