One thing Sam should get tons of credit for is the story organization. This is an INCREDIBLY complex story and he's done a phenomenal job turning it into a well-organized, easy-to-understand story
Artisinal doesn mean "forced child labor", it means something is made in traditional or non mechanized way. Pay attention to a word " traditional ", child labor in mines there common thing for hundreds maybe even thousands of years. It has to stop obviously, but it doesn't mean that anything named Artisinal includes child labor.
@@AlexG-wk3nh Even so, the term they use is not wrong. Child labor is much bigger problem because its not just about mining, those families don't have enough money or chances to earn money anywhere else. This is often not some forced labor rather people not having a choice and I blame governments who allow people to fall that far!
In my country there's an issue where people mine for coal in makeshift shafts. Of course it is totally black market with lots of injuries and deaths. The word for it translates directly in english to "Poverty Shafts". Good to know we can now call them artisans, or maybe craft coal?
Very well said. I'm in the mining industry and I often tell friends that there is no such thing as ethical cobalt, and that the massive battery boom is going to be powered by unethical mining in central Africa. People tend to not register or believe me. It's just too inconvenient to admit that almost everything about our 21st century lifestyle is made possible by child labour in the DRC, and too easy to ignore unfortunately.
Is it really better with oil? I mean, sure, there is oil produced in the U.S. or Norway, but a large portion of the world's supply comes from oppressive, non-democratic regimes with little regard to environmental impact.
@@lukfi89 The global south needs to be able to nationalize its oil and lithium (i.e. Bolivia) to allow the profits from that mining to develop the country, rather then for the enrichment of a few corrupt, local politicians and western capitalists.
@@sllgrecco Before oil nationalization, Venezuelas oil was being funneled offshore to American oil companies. After nationalization the money was funded into Venezuelan social programs to feed the poor, until the US slapped 155+ sanctions on them starving their economy.
@@wellingtonaviationchannel634 Venezuela was the richest south american country before Chavez. By the way, Bolivia already nationalized his oil production years ago, no poor saw it's profits.
I just read a bunch of the comments and not a single one has mentioned how all these EVs will bring many (or most) power grids to their knees or worse. The infrastructure simply isn't in place to handle the kind of demand charging all of those vehicles will require. California is already begging their citizens to try and charge their EVs in "off" hours so as not to cause brown outs and outages. I can't imagine how things will work when the number of EVs multiplies like they want.
To be fair nearly all of Americas Electric Grid is desperately needing upgrades with most of them being built before the 1970's and haven't seen upgrades for decades. But yes EV's will indeed put a strain on yhe Grid but practically everything else can be classified as bringing the Grid a burden without good reason like Adverts on Billboards and Screens and AC Usage
EV’s should raise electric costs (by rough zero scientific calculation) of something like 40 kWh per car per day. We could say it would double household electricity consumption (but not industrial consumption). Let’s give a rough number, say 70% increase in electric grid usage. It is high, but not disqualifying. Solar panels are becoming increasingly prevalent in sunny regions, such as california. Those output those 40 kWh a day. Their growth will cover a big chunk of those 70% increase. The flattening of the power usage will be a win for utilities. Energy storage technologies will help. That will reduce waste and lower peak demands. I find the grid problem to be lesser than the battery supply chain problem. A notable problem, but fixable.
I am a geologist and every time I say this to someone who's on about electric cars will fix everything... The issue is more how much we are using raw materials not what we are using... We reached peak mining in 1980s for most raw material, every years it's getting more and more expensive to mine these resources... Sadly our entire economic system is measured by growth which can only be fulfilled by more mining more resources
@@MJ-uk6lu You mean like a service economy? How does that fix anything? Service economies rely on industrial and manufacturing economies for their equipment, supplies, etc..
Great video as always, however you did made one mistake concerning solid state batteries, they will mostly likely not decrease the usage of the mentioned metals. This is due to a mixup between energy density and energy content. As of now the energy content (so capacity) defining part of a battery is the cathode. So for an imaginary battery pack with 100 kWh of standard lithium ion batteries one needs at least the same amount of cathode as for a 100 kWh battery pack of solid state batteries (even if there is a significant weight difference between the batteries, explaining the different energy density). The difference then is in the anode and the electrolyte, for state of the art batteries a mix of silicon and graphite is used as anode and a solution of usually lithium hexaflourophosphate in organic solvents is used as electrolyte, while in the case of for example Quantumscape Lithium metal is planned to be used as anode and a ceramic made up out of Lithium, Lanthanum, Zirconium and Oxygen will be used as electrolyte. So for most solid state batteries there will be more lithium required per kWh! Better solutions for alleviating the problem of metal demand however do exist, for example LFP cathodes, which require Lithium but no Nickelr or Cobalt (as used by Tesla in their standard range Model Y and 3) or Sodium-Ion batteries (not as much industrialized and applicability for EVs not proven, but in the product pipeline of CATL). But again otherwise great video, more people need to be educated on the ramifications of the required electrification of the mobility sector.
With solid state battery, you will need a little less energy content for the same range, because you will be carrying less battery with you. So you can reduce Co and Ni (not Li though). But I think LFP is the future.
@@jonhanson8925 Basically the same materials can be used for Anode and Cathode as for conventional batteries. So for cathode we have the typical NMC/NCA and LFP materials, but it is also possible to use other materials like Vanadium oxide, but a lot of additional R&D is required to commercialize those, which is unlikely considering the available materials. At the anode side we have the main reason for the higher energy density of solid state batteries, due to less chemical reactions at the anode-electrolyte interface Lithium metal can more easily be used, which boosts the energy density tremendously ( Graphite has a capacity of ~370 mAh/g while Lithium has 3860 mAh/g). The biggest promise however is to use only the copper current collector as the anode, on which the Lithium from the NMC deposits during charging, omitting the anode material completely would of course be a huge plus for the energy density (and eliminate material use and thus cost). But as you probably can imagine this is rather hard to accomplish outside the lab. Where the biggest difference is, is of course the electrolyte and separator. Here the solid electrolyte acts at the same time as a separator, so no need for that. As materials there are three main classes: ceramics (like the LLZO from Quantumscape), sulfidic (Don't know from top of my head which company uses those but they often consist of Lithium, sulfur, phosphor and some other materials) and lastly there are organic, polymer type electrolytes (do not have an example right now), those are already commercialized by blue solutions. However all have their problems, e.g. the blue solution batteries need to be heated to ~60°C to have sufficient conductivity for the Li ions.
@@kingofurukgilgamesh7828 Yeah you are completely right, one would require a smaller battery for the same range due to the reduced weight, but i have no idea how strong that impact would be
As for lithium, there's a reason it's found in dry places. It's because lithium salts are dissolved by water, so they get accumulated and concentrated only in dry places.
The irony of HelloFresh sponsorship is pretty strong here. Every ingredient uses disposable, one-time-use packaging, and each shipment requires another freezer pack and high cost individual shipping. It produced a laughable amount of plastic waste compared to shopping at a grocery store.
Ok with all due respect, Hello Fresh being more eco-friendly? Individually shipping individually wrapped and contained meals to homes... there may be less food waste but I'm more than skeptical about their overall impact being lower than traditional ways of obtaining groceries.
Thing is, produce at the store also uses a lot of packaging. Ever buy a lot of eggs, like multiple dozen? Fruits come into the store like that, in a cardboard box, individually separated by more cardboard, sometimes in foam sleeves. Workers take them out of there before putting them on display. I don’t know if that outweighs how much Hello Fresh does, I’m just saying there’s hidden costs that you might no be considering.
@@intan4722 what? I used to work in food logistics as a supervisor and have never seen that apart from ecologically produced fruit for the rich and pretentious.
Have you ever actually tried hello fresh? The amount of extra plastic is very small. The meals come in recycled paper bags with the whole thing in a recycled cardboard box. The vegetables have less packaging than you often get in the supermarket. Where you do get extra is in the small ingredients like you get a sachet of vinegar rather than using some out if a bottle. But overall the quantity of plastic is not much higher. The meals aren't shipped individually you get one delivery a week which is no different than most people would do driving to the supermarket anyway.
@@Strafprozessordnung ? Do you buy all your vegetables from local farmers markets only and expect that's how it works everywhere on the planet? Because unfortunately it doesn't. People buy bags of potatoes, carrots and onions... Strawberries, blueberries, mushrooms etc all come in plastic boxes. Even when picking your own produce, you're given plastic bags to put them in to weigh. For someone working in "food logistics" you sound weirdly clueless about how much plastic is everywhere.
"How much bad should be allowed for the greater good?" The question with which this video ends is not only applicable for EVs but for a lot of things. That is such a powerful question.
This implies that there is no existence or reduction in badness in the world. Aren't we as consumers committing bad deeds every day by the way we consume and by how much?
no one's talking about the radon gas that gets kicked up from the mines/ground from the drilling for lithium, and the green acid sludge that companies let sit at mining sites from the extraction process left to percolate and destroy ground water and lakes and streams cause no one wants to deal with that stuff or rather have no solution to that huge waste problem
It's almost like this fake green revolution is worse for the environment than our gas cars...cars that only account for 16% of the world's C02 production.
Radon is produced by the decay of radioactive elements (U, Th, etc) in the earth's crust. It seeps out EVERYWHERE. Doesn't matter whether you dig or not. It also has a very short half life (~3.8 days). It becomes a problem in CLOSED rooms, not out in the open (like open pit mines).
@@splitloopgaming3523 That's a bad take away. The point is there are always unintended or undesirable consequences for every choice, no matter how well intended.
the age old doctrine of "the ends justify the means" (no matter how murderous the regime is, it will be worth it for the greater good) Cultural Marxism
Wendover Productions: "How much Bad should be allowed for the Greater Good ?" This is by far the simplest way someone has described the issue the modern world is grappled by! Great video, once again 🙌🏻
No it isn't, its tripe. Who's greater good? What type of bad? A lot of a little bad or a lot of a very bad? As always, it will generally be settled by who has more money. When that fails, it will be solved by who has a larger military or at least, who is more willing to send soldiers to die.
How reusable/recyclable are the batteries after their end of life? 100% lithium recovery? 50% recovery? Are we going to be facing a massive pollution problem from these batteries being tossed in landfills or storage like with plastic bottles, used solar panels, used wind turbines?
Yes and no. By hand they can be disassembled and used to make more batteries. But 95% of lithium batteries go to the landfill. It costs less to make batteries from new. The nickel and cadmium are extracted but that is all. What you should really be worried about is water. Contaminating and pumping 500,000 gallons of water per ton of lithium is an environmental disaster on a global scale. That alone should halt this ev market in it's tracks
@@SmokeElectronics It makes sense that tiny batteries in small electronics aren't recycled, but the amount of recyclable material in an EV is enormous. Tossing it in a landfill tossing out profit.
Europe might be banning Lithium due to this. They are horrible for the environment, which is a reason why solar panels and wind turbines are bad for the environment (and why nuclear is the way to go)
I feel like you really should have touched on the fact that there are two major types of lithium mining. The type of lithium mining you started this video mentioning in Australia is a completely different process than the type of mining being proposed at Thacker pass. I am sure you are aware of the difference but I doubt most people know that lithium is mostly extracted via evaporation rather than traditional mining that you introduced this video with.
@@RetroDawn The images of the salt lakes and ponds produces lithium brine - a salt solution which is concentrated through evaporation and some refining to purify. The Australian lithium mine shown produces pegmatites, a type of ore (usually about 5-6%) that requires refining and processing into a usable concentrate. Brine type lithium requires a vast quantities of water and land for ponds where as lithium mining uses much more energy to extract and process but this is usually cheaper at scale. If we can use more sustainable energy sources for mining I suspect pegmatites will be cheaper and more sustainable in the long term.
Video was clear about the large amount of water required for evap recovery of Li, the most common method and the one required at Thatcher should it happen.
@@Nill757 But that is mostly toxic salt water and not quite comparable to drinking water. And it isn't a required method as he has shown later in the video there are other methods of getting the salt put of the water.
Correction: the UK will ban the sale of NEW internal combustion vehicles. The second hand market will be unaffected and if prices do not decrease most people will simply buy a second hand petrol or diesel...
And then how do they expect all those people to be able to afford a brand new electric car when the values of all of their gas and diesel vehicles fall through the floor that they would need to sell to be able to afford a new vehicle 🤔
I bought an electric bicycle to see if it was feasible to commute to work with it. And not only was it feasible, it was very easy and saved me thousands of dollars and time over a year. I think the answer is that more people need to avoid using cars as much as they can.
I agree, and city planning can do a lot towards those goals, making it more comfortable even for the fewer drivers that can't choose to use a bike for example because of their payload .
Good for you, we’re not all rich like you that we can afford to not drive cars. Don’t let rich coastal elites make expensive decisions for you. Most of us can’t ride your tricycle to work as we live in cheaper areas away from city center
@@mrb152 where i live (mid atlantic DC area) the coldest it gets is around 20f. Had to wear a lot warm clothes and face covering, but I did it. Batteries probably won't work when it's that cold, but yeah i get that it wont work for everyone, but the idea is that for those who can do it, should...
Laughed out loud at the sponsor at the end of the video being Hello Fresh. After 20 minutes of green talk, a sponsorship from a company that packages each tiny ingredient in plastic, then ships it to you? I know that the creator is smart enough to know that this plastic is indeed not 'recyclable'.
@@VitaeLibra The problem with what you're saying is you're assuming what they said is true and CO2 is some kind of pollution and therefore companies have been polluting the planet with it. That's the opposite of the truth. Atmospheric CO2 is not pollution, it's plant food and there's TOO LITTLE in the atmosphere, not too much. Life thrived in 7000 PPM and there was no catastrophic global warming.
@@VitaeLibra The dangerous level of atmospheric CO2 we're closets to is 150 PPM, at which point all plants die, all animals die, we all die. At 1200 PPM to 1600 PPM we all live and plants thrive and there's more food on the planet, not less. The Earth is actually historically cold right now too, not historically hot. Want to see it? Search : "Global temperature and atmospheric CO2 over geologic time/graph/images."
What if we increased energy efficiency with steel wheels on steel rails, and ran long extension cords above the roads so vehicles didn't need as large batteries.
Another option to reduce our dependency on lithium is to use smaller vehicles that need smaller batteries. If there was better bike infrastructure, more people could bike to work and do errands. eBikes and eScooters use batteries that are 100 300 times smaller than EVs. Not everybody would like or is able to switch for various reasons, and that's fine. We just need to make micro mobility a viable alternative so people can have a real choice.
@@JayVal90 it would definitely help. The only issue is that gas-powered bikes and scooters can be very polluting due to more relaxed environmental rules for them, also they're really loud even vs gas cars. Manual bikes are good but not everyone can or is willing to sweat to go to work. eBikes and scooters seem to be the best of both worlds with no emissions and little to no sweat (unless you want to)
@@rustyslug2943 Bikes, yes, but not scooters. Escooters are, like electric cars, better than ICE ones. The expansion of production is difficult, but wouldn’t be required to such a scae with smaller batteries.
@@rustyslug2943 agreed. But not everybody wants or can use manual bikes/scooters for a multi-mile trip. If it's for transportation we want as many people as possible using them including grandmas, and people out of shape (like me). The good news is that they both use the same infrastructure so advancements for one help the other
As a chemical engineer researching electrochemical energy systems and storage, I'd say this is quite accurate. However, there are certainly more challenges relating to solid state batteries than just cost. Namely, charging takes a lot longer and they are more prone to degradation and have poor cycle stability in relation to Li-ion batteries. Also- from my understanding they are more affected by temperature, making them nearly unusable in cold weather. Not mentioning this stuff makes us scientists and engineers look like a bunch of bumbling idiots LOL The cost of the metals used in electrochemical systems across the board are increasing, that's undeniable. I'm not sure what the solution is. However, I expect Zn-air to be where battery power ultimately ends up. There are a lot of challenges for us to figure out with Zn-air, but they have the potential to perform amazingly. Additionally, the inclusion of supercapacitors to solid state battery powered vehicles may assist in some of the slow charging problems. I know relatively little about them but from my understanding they use a lot of metals that are useful for electrochemical applications, so we'll have to see how economic it is. Its a shame that FCVs don't really compare to EVs, but it is what it is. The infrastructure is too difficult to establish, and hydrogen production as of now isn't where it needs to be. Nevertheless, I think the most effective strategy to avoid running out of resources is to diversify the technology, but what will the logistical cost be?
That was sort of my thoughts when the FCV’s really started up. My thought was “great we finally decided to stop being stupid”. Then BEV’s picked up instead and I knew we were still incredibly stupid.
its probably these issues that are the problems of why we arent moving to solid state batteries, economy of scale thing i don't beleive is a actual issue here. If a company like tesla believed they work and you can give them a price once they order x ammount of batteries per year, they can just move to it themselves and create that so called economy of scale. Problem has to be other things that need to be solved first.
@@TMS5100 supercapacitors would most likely be used for frequently storing small amounts of energy, for example you might store energy generated by regenerative braking in the supercaps and then discharge them for use by the motor, so they should be emptied by the time you want to use them again
I think really we need to invest into nuclear for constant electrical energy generation then use hydrogen as a form of "battery storage" for intermittent energy users (eg vehicles). The electricity gained from nuclear would go into our homes and businesses. Then we use the electricity to split H1's from H2O and use the hydrogen as a semi-permanent storage for vehicles, which periodically turn on an off and aren't running all the time. The issue I see is that the people with the money simply don't want to invest. It's going to have to come down to a "parallel economy" type situation or we're going to have to cater to them with prospect of earning even more money they they already have from existing procurement and storage methods. This mentality explains why Texas is more eco-friendly than California, which should be nonsense jibber jabber.
Folks, if you like peace of mind about your battery (longevity & safety), for years to come, just charge your EV between 30% - 70% (and do 90% - 100% when going for a long Road Trip). (I own Tesla S & X, and I'm an Electrical Engineer) * High temperatures kill batteries. If you go on a holiday/vacation during the summer, leave your vehicle at a low SOC (state of charge). For example, at or below 30% SOC * Cycle within a narrow SOC range. For example: 40-60% rather than 10-80%. The cathode expands and contracts in a wider SOC range, which causes it to break apart. * On that note: The lower the narrower the SOC range, the better. That means charging frequently. * Avoid charging the vehicle above 75% SOC. Above 75% side reactions start occuring that cause degradation. This also reduces the volume expansion issues mentioned * Taking all variables into account, operating between 45-70% SOC, and storage at ~30% is ideal. * Occasional high SOC and wide SOC range are okay! For example, the occasional road trip. * With good thermal management hardware and battery management software, supercharging should have minimal negative effects on cycle life But even y'all will not follow those tips. The battery will not die tomorrow. it is just that there are some small (or big) consequences later on. Have a great day
Wow! I'm currently doing an internship at a car manufacturer in Germany and working on environmental responsibility, and the topics we are currently working on the most are alternatives to EVs i.e e-fuels and re-fuels as well as Life Cycle Assessment. Great video! This is definitely a thoroughly investigated and researched video and shows the great complexity of solving the fossil fuel dependent economy problem. I love your videos! Greetings from Germany!
Environmental responsibility sounds like something a bunch of tree hugging hippies made up to make us feel guilty for not being rich enough to afford expensive electric cars
@Noah Roth thanks! There are many different types of alternative fuels, for example power-to-gas or liquid-to-gas using hydrogen (especially green hydrogen produced using renewables) or biofuels produced by using food by-products such as corn or, as I recently heard, using wheat scraps! It is really interesting and definitely a topic that has to get more mainstream attention especially from politicians (EU looks determined to kill the ICE even though it could use alternative fuels and reduce its emissions). As a environmentalist myself, it is definitely something impressing as you don't normally hear much from the electrification problems...
@@TKUA11 it's actually pretty helpful as we are trying to change the business approach from within... The car manufacturer has to change in order to help mitigate the climate impact of its business model
Fuel cells are too expensive because of all the precious metals required. Also green hydrogen as a fuel is extremely inefficient compared to a battery. Cars will run on batteries.
Not to be mean, but why doesn't it surprise me legacy automakers are working on alternatives to EVs when everyone knows no alternative is necessary (nor viable). My best bet would be the company is BMW since they're easily the worst in terms of sustainable vision, but I wouldn't put it any of the other Germany automakers tbh.
While I support Electric Vehicles on the whole, it is nice to see someone pointing out the very real issues of the batteries. Personally I see a non carbon road vehicle solution as a mix of traditional electric vehicles for personal and light use, and hydrogen fuel cells for long range bulk haulage use as traditional battery operated vehicles do not scale up so well when it comes to Heavy Goods Vehicles and the like. Both technologies of course have their problems, not the least of which is infrastructure buildup as well as issues with the technologies involved. We need to understand these issues however and make informed choices, not simply choose one or the other, or disregard both because of those issues. Both will be needed, and as was so succinctly said, we do have to accept a certain amount of bad for the greater good.
Synthetic LPG Autogas basically Alkanes is way better than Hydrogen. It easier to ship transport and much more safer. It's already the 3rd most used light vehicle fuel.
"we do have to accept a certain amount of bad for the greater good." I understand the sentiment, but people need to be hyper-aware of the fact that this kind of logic has justified so much evil in the past. "The Greater Good" is subjective and changes according to the whims of the masses and their fears.
Public transportation, bicycles, walking... All of these pollute _far_ less than even the cleanest electric car and could replace most uses of cars in cities.
Without a shift towards public transport, and an order of magnitude or more reduction in private vehicle usage, it's not going to be anywhere near good enough to avert catastrophe. And that's assuming that it is in conjuction with massive decarbonization in non-transport sectors at the same time. Trams, trains, and trolley buses bypass the battery problem entirely.
@@Hjernespreng there is some nuance to it, the US is huge and impractical for public in many areas due to low population density. However I do agree with you in many areas (such as where I grew up, in the suburbs of Indiana)
At 14:35 you mention that electric vehicles are responsible for 75% less emmisions compared to ICE vehicles even when factoring in production, usage, and scrapping. Would you be able to cite sources for that as I would love to read further on it!
Yes climate change is real but governments mandating the potential ban of ICE is not the way to go for solving this crisis. There has to be another way.
@@Mrcharles. I loved cars since before I can even remember and now I research transport policy. Unfortunately there is no other way as of now. Just way too many people on earth to be using such inefficient machines to get around.
@@lastminutesolutions perhaps if the government had invested in other modes of transportation like high speed rail 50 years ago we wouldn’t have this problem.
From my understanding the biggest mineral shortage for EV batteries will be nickel. Lithium is an extremely abundant resource and can be found almost everywhere. Only small amounts of cobalt are used in most EV batteries and some new EV batteries are cobalt free. Nickel though is much less abundant and makes up a pretty large proportion of long range EV batteries. Lower range EV's can use iron phosphate.
If memory serves, many asteroids are plentiful in nickel for some reason, so that may be a good source if we can get to the point that we can get to it.
Honestly we need to, as societies, be looking at how many cars can we replace with public transport rather than with new cars. So many small towns are unwalkable if you're not at peak fitness or you're ill or disabled, even a bus going back and forth through town a few times a day would make a huge difference to so many lives. When bus services get added, they tend to get used
the problem is that even in a small town with a decent public transport.. most people still have decided that they need to own a car. for when they need to extend beyond that zone, or they want to go somewhere that public transport doesn't reach etc. and once you have the vehicle, the only incentive not to drive is environmentalism.. and to many that's just not worth the cost of convenience. in the US anyways. i'm a big car person. i love and prefer personal transport to public. i hate cities and pretty much hate people and being around them. nothing makes me angrier than having to sit near them or breathe their air or listen to their conversations etc. it will not sway me towards public transportation. what would be effective to me however is a small light and efficient electric vehicle. something with a small carbon footprint and smaller capability. however i would still need to own a larger vehicle for everything else i need to do. and the economics of multiple vehicles is not compelling enough. so this would need to be something that did not cost a lot to insure, or register, or tax and so forth. it would need to make economic sense to me. so it's either electric full size cars and trucks. or a second electric vehicle for the 80% of my life that i spend driving around town and dont need much cargo capacity or range. plus i live in the deep south, where its unbearably hot and humid 90% of the year, and colder than we normally are prepared for the other 10%. cycling is a non starter. i cant take my kid to school, i cant get groceries in it. i could go to work on a bike but am unwilling to arrive at work sweaty and tired.
This is all good for dense cities. It would be unworkable for most place in the world. You can't sustain a bus service when you'd have just a few passengers per hour
yeah electric cars are as space ineficient as normal cars. trains from trams to bullet trains along metro and light trains are the answer, they don't get stuck on traffic like buses or trams, they can carry a lot of people on a direct route(they can also diseabled and bicycle friendly), also they can be all electric without bateries. trams for small towns, metro for big cities, bullet train across cities far away; buses are better than nothing(mainly for suburbs and the edges of the cities), i think on cities over 1 million people must have a least 3 metro lines; Tokyo(13 lines), London(11 lines) and CDMX(12 lines) are good example of good public transit whit some level of walkability and cycling.
@@neverknowsbest4994 I am sick and tired of people making the “what about the countryside” argument. What about them? Just because a country is not car dependent doesn’t mean that you can’t drive cars in the countryside. Just look at how a lot of European country does it, they also have countrysides and dense citys, people drive cars when traveling in the countryside and used public transportation when in the cities. And in fact it’s usually even better to drive in these countries because the roads are better maintained since there’s less of them. I don’t get why it’s so hard to understand.
@John E This! And a lot of the work and ways of living sorta dictate such. Public transportation isn't any good if "afterhours" is a thing.... And crap tier connections where the closest drop off is 2 miles from the destination, and even then what's a 15 minute trip by car is 1-2 hours by bus on a clear day. The amount of overhaul needed to make public trasport even remotely enticing is mind boggling depending on locales.
As many have said in the comments, for most people cars are an extremely inefficient means of transport - regardless of their energy source. A move towards public transport and smaller electronic power personal transport (ebikes etc.) seems to be an actual green step forwards. Even the current system of traffic lights could be optimized - think about how much energy is wasted among all the cars when 3 lanes of traffic need to come to stop to allow one car to make a turn.
Too many people view the world through the lense of a city. Public transportation is horrifically ineffective on an individual level when you dont live in a city and when theres no biking infrastructure like Amsterdam you can't really bike.
@@mayonnaiseluther1568 Most people live in cities. There will always be people out in the country but people in cities shouldn't have to drive. And yes a lot of cities don't have good infrastructure like Amsterdam. That's the point. We need to build it.
Sounds so obvious but I'm glad this video focuses a little on the lithium being mined. Itrs crazy how many people don't realise that batteries, as good as they are, still require mining non-renewables.
its non-renewable thanks to the lack of recycling as battery can be recycled to recuperate 80% to 95%+ of its raw materials. Its insane why there is a huge reliance mining while very few are working to recycle.
…and that those batteries don’t last forever and are “non-renewable.” Trade some air quality in densely populated areas for massive holes in the Earth robbing it’s precious metals, then poising it with dying batteries years later? Nothing Green about it.
Well, then they are just as uninformed as people saying that EVs are worse for the environment than ICEs. It is extremely obvious that due to limitations imposed by basic science and reality, non-renewable minerals and metals will need to be mined, often in questionable conditions, and used for the green transition. Solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, everything uses these minerals in one way or another. It's unavoidable. Those materials will need to come from somewhere and often countries that have a lot of them are controlled by scumbags. BUT, it is still better than doing nothing and staying our current course. We just need to tolerate it for now while looking for and perfecting better solutions at the same time, i.e. natrium ion batteries. The question now is just like what the video asks in the end: how much bad should be allowed for the greater good?
@@gerhardaryawardana72 From what I read from people that have EV' s is not enough range,not enough power and they lose their charge too quickly operating in mountains and deserts,basically most of the same problems that existed with EV' s in the early 20th Century, EV's, imo are just not ready for prime time yet,ok for around town,but that's about it,this is not the kind of car you would be able to take the family on vacation in to the Grand Canyon, then there is the problem of recharging,it takes too long,not like a gasoline powered car that in 5 min you are refueled and back on the road,an EV takes from 6 to 8 hrs to get a complete charge,may as well get a motel room and wait it out,and if you charge at home,watch your power bill go sky high,the money you save on gasoline, that and much more may be spent on electricity and I don't want my tax money spent on installing charging stations, tax money wasn't used to install gasoline pumps,the oil companies or the people who owned the gas station did that themselves,let the EV industry do that themselves,and if everyone went to EV' s where is all of the electricity we will need come from? Electricity doesn't appear by magic,if we can't use nuclear, coal,hydro, natural gas or fuel oil, how will electricity be generated,wind and solar are not reliable,remember Texas when all of that froze up in the winter,imo,I just don't think it is ready for prime time yet,this hasn't been completely thought through,maybe in 50yrs,it seems like the people who want this,while they may be grown people chronologically, they think like a immature 5 year old.I am already 70 yrs old,so unless I live another 50 yrs,I don't think I will see this in my life time.
I think this video shows the one thing missing from any discussion on EVs and environmentalism is that every choice you make has a cost no matter the benefit. Things have to be looked at a nuanced way and we shouldn't sugar coat any topic with platitudes.
@@kavky hydrogen is made from fossil fuels (at scale) - why would you convert a fossil fuel car to use another fossil fuel? The tiny amount of Hydrogen made from clean electricity takes 3x as much electricity per mile than an EV does, and costs 10x as much at retail as just plugging in at home.
@@kavky manufacturing hydrogen emits CO2 - hydrogen doesn’t exist by itself in large quantities, it exists as part of other things, mainly water, but also hydrocarbons. In order to produce pure hydrogen for a fuel cell you need to separate it, the most common (by far) and economical method is steam reforming methane, which emits CO2. Combusting hydrogen in an engine with air will still produce NOx emissions as well as water, and not a lot of power - it will make your 5 liter engine feel like 1 - if the conversion is even possible - it’s also proven very unreliable due to embrittlement. The only clean way to produce hydrogen, without CO2 emission is using electricity and electrolysis of water - but this - combined with a fuel cell to turn the hydrogen back into electricity takes 3x more energy per mile than just charging an EV does - at retail, green hydrogen is 10x more expensive per mile than domestic electricity in an EV. Hydrogen doesn’t make sense for transportation. It’s too low in energy density, too difficult to handle and too expensive to manufacture. EVs win on every metric, including environmental emissions.
My biggest problem with EVs is and always will be the cost of the vehicle. A decent EV costs about $50k, which for someone who only makes $27k a year, creates a huge problem with affordability. While there will probably be more tax credits and such, that monthly payment is far too great to overcome for someone whose take home pay is less than $2000 a month. This "savior" is just going to expose the ever-widening gap between those of us who don't have and those who have, and all the smugness that is going to follow because I absolutely refuse to buy a 50 thousand dollar smartphone that will need to be replaced after 5-6 years with another 50 thousand dollar device that I CANNOT afford. But my 12-year old Honda, still works great, doesn't cost that much to run, and will be dead reliable for another 5-10 years if I maintain it properly. Sorry for being so poor, but this isn't worth how much more damage is going to be done to OUR ONLY HOME IN THE UNIVERSE BTW, so that Li and Co and Ni shareholders can get richer while the po' folks who have to mine it suffer more and more, and who also can't afford to buy the cars that their excruciating work is helping to build.
They only cost this much because EV's arent as mass produced as combustion vehicles, in the future they will actually be cheaper to construct than combustion engines. as Graphene battery packs will cost a lot less than entire engine and transmission systems, with graphene being an extremely cheap material.
You don't care about the toxic chemicals, human slavery and environmental destruction that comes with EVs? They are significantly more harmful to the environment than ICEs and most of the EV can't be recycled. The battery just gets buried and a lot of the plastic isn't recyclable. EVs are a stupid dream.
@@ZingNovaVODS Thats bullshit, ICE's are bone simple to make despite their "high number of moving parts" because EV motors need special metallurgy with tight hysterisis curves, wheras pistons, rods, and cranks need only be drop forged and ground. Tesla is as mass produced as any other car, economies of scale wont fix this problem my guy. The reality is this, ICE's are coming that are just as efficient as the turbines used to power the grid itself, and it will be cheaper to drive an ICE car than an EV, and indeed cheaper to run a generator than buy from the grid. The EV is a scam, full stop.
@@ZingNovaVODS given how vehicles are mass produced, the drivetrain is bolted onto a body, ev mass production isn't an issue. plot out a vaguely ICE shaped EV drivetrain and drop existing bodies on top of it as they already do. battery tech is the biggest issue, and lunatics like Musk who insist on making EV supercars instead of doing actual engineering which is to say making it work 5% better than the bare minimum. you don't need a 400V awd system than can do 3 second 0-60mph. just build it fwd, with performance to achieve 0-60 in a normal 8-12ish range fit it with software limiters that only let drivers access about 60% of it's potential with more power granted if towing or on an increasing incline. the world isn't ready for EV because battery tech isn't ready for the road. current model ev's are paperweights once their limited life batteries are failing. ICE cars aren't fairing any better the lease market has made them subject to engineered obsolescence as well. once that 4 year lease is up the dual clutch system fails and now the car is a brick requiring you to spend 75% of it's current value replacing a clutch that all but requires the car to be unmanufactured to reach it's home. EV's are the future, but they need a form of rapid energy storage i don't believe exists yet to actually be viable. the current generation will be seen as a monumental farce to future generations
There is an option not mentioned in this video: lithium-battery recycling. During my masters me and a group of other students designed a battery recycling plant based on a German patent. We found that Lithium, Cobalt, Manganese, Nickel as well as Graphite can be extracted from used batteries with a very high purity and a pretty good return on investement for a plant in Germany. Just shortly after we found out that some companies started building more of these recycling plants. The good thing is that with increasing EV demand those kind of recycling plants become more profitable and I hope more large businesses and governments start to aid this development.
its a good idea, but wouldnt be nearly enough, we need to figure out battery technology using something else, such as sodium or aluminum batteries instead of sticking to lithium because its already shown lithium production is just no good for our planet at the levels required for "worldwide" electric vehicles.
Why were LFP batteries not mentioned. They are frequently used in buses and standard range model 3s. Although sightly less energy dense, they contain no nickel or cobalt. They also last longer, are safer and are here now.
because this was an anti EV hit piece? No mention of any context around other methods of transportation propulsion, just lots of scary 'look! bad things!' around batteries used in EVs (but not batteries used in other devices for the last 20 years - which, even now, are the far greater users of Lithium, Cobalt and Nickel)
@@KayAteChef not without talking about the impacts of our current solution - Oil - without context about why we need to make the change, it's just a vague anti-change piece. Nothing is perfect, and we need to act now - the transition to EVs is already going to take too long, trying to wait another decade with vague promises about solid state batteries is harmful.
@@KayAteChef I have not seen solid state at scale - if it were possible, there would be crazy thin phones and smart watches with it in already - maybe premium price points - but for certain applications, there is a market for the benefits they tout - so where are the products? Dyson hung his hat on having solid state in his new EV - he had to first change that position when it was clearly not possible - then abandoned the whole project. Where is the luxury super thin fast charging Apple Watch ‘Rich Dude Edition’ with a solid state battery in it? They made a gold for 10 grand, don’t you thing they would have offered something similar by now? And if they can make it at low volume tiny cell luxury watch volume, how are they going to scale it to a car? It took 49 years for lithium ion to go from lab, to military use, to expensive consumer electrics to expensive small battery vehicles to eventually mid priced electric vehicles and probably another 5 to 10 to get to affordable electric vehicles. Solid state is still in the lab. Tell me what product you can but with a solid state battery in it and I’ll change my mind.
I was expecting the video to mention Lithium Ion battery recycling enterprises, such as Li-Cycle and Redwood. Battery recyclers will play a crucial role in alleviating the battery supply chain.
The manufacturers haven't designed the batteries for recyclability, and no one's commercialized the recycling process, yet. It's very difficult and expensive. If there's to be any semblance of "green" to this technology, then they need to prioritize recycling. This is *far* more important than most other forms of recycling, where there isn't a market for the materials, and most is just thrown away, instead--especially since China started refusing our recyclables for recycling.
@@RetroDawn it's coming. Most lithium used to be in laptop and cellphone batteries. It's only now that's it's in car batteries. Huge packs are easier to recycle. Cars as a waste product are very recycled. The plastics. The steel. The copper. Just about all the bits get used. Currently it's tens of thousands of batteries hitting the wreck lots per year. Not enough to sustain an industry. Give it 5 years-7 years. Tesla made 1 million this year. In 7 years that's a lot of batteries to recycle n Today we are recycling the batteries from their first few years. They were only making tens of thousands of cars then.
@@pierredelecto7069 We're not recycling any post-consumer EV batteries yet. Unfortunately, none of the EV manufacturers, including Tesla, are designing their batteries to be replaced, let alone recycled. They want people to just buy a new one. Ironcially, Tesla's ex-CTO and cofounder is the co-founder of Redwood, the only company recycling EV batteries--but that's 100% pre-consumer (manufacturing defects), and they are using a hybrid pyro/hydro solution that burns away much of the lithium and other materials. However, we need to use these batteries for as long as possible before recycling. I doubt there are any businesses that are purchasing used EV batteries for reuse currently, though. They could be useful for non-mobile usages, such as the grid. But, they'll never do that--at least not in the US.
@@RetroDawn I don't think there's many EV batteries even available yet. Even as scrap commodity the demand is high. People will search out crashed Teslas to re use the battery. Not recycle it. I was thinking that as millions of battery operated cars are retired each year, which will happen eventually, that at that point there will be enough supply to encourage an industry. First step to having a lithium recycling industry is having a huge source of lithium that needs recycling. I'm no engineer. Just a car guy.
@@RetroDawn Tesla actually has a recycling program of their own (as do every self respecting battery manufacturer ) but it’s quite small since not very many evs are of the road yet. But a good few thousand tons are recycled per year. It’s in their impact report.
9:43 "but to decarbonize driving, solutions must be found". they have been found, and they have existed for hundreds of years. it's called public transit, biking, and walking
In The Netherlands the goal is not necessarily to replace Electric cars from ICE, but also to drastically reduce the number of cars completely. This will skew the actual amount of lithium needed and the amount of cars to replace. This is the real target and it is 100% realistic to see half the amount of cars on the road within a decade due to a great plan to build out a massive public transport system and to invest in that with a long term plan.
Good luck with that in Central Europe. I was travelling by bus in Hungary last summer and the journey took 3 times as much as by car. Also I just saw in the news that in Slovakia where I live they had to cancel multiple trains and busses because of the lack of drivers.
No wonder why much of the hate against EV's I see comes from the US where we *still* have few plans to offer much in the way of public transit, even within cities
@@cpufreak101 Americans arent anti EV. Charging is the problem. F-150 sells like hotcakes, so price isnt an issue for all. when your car takes 150kw, but its charging at half due to temps or charger issue??? I see PHEVs succeed in U.S. no need to build chargers and modify your electrical system at home as most PHEVs draw 16amps. Upgrading to 200 amps can cost up to 20K if lines are underground.
They were not banned, people are still allowed to drive around with them. It was banned to sell any new combustion car made after 2030. Until the last combustion cars leave those countries it is going to take up until 2050, because people there on average drive their car for 18 years.
@@fatalityin1 still seems dumb since it kinda seems like its reducing the potential of improvements in internal combustion engine tech. Seems best to set high MPG standards. That might have the positive effect of making cars smaller/weigh less. Idk.. I'm no expert.
@@adventurefaps9571 it's not dumb cause by directly banning ICE you're forcing manufacturers to divert their R&D money towards developing better batteries and EVs, which are unquestionably better for the environment than ICE ever will be. It's either allow them to keep producing ICE and get at best 20% cleaner vehicles or force them to produce 70% and upwards cleaner vehicles.
I was hoping for a mention of LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries. These contain zero cobalt, and so eliminate the most problematic mineral. The standard edition of Tesla’s Model 3 use this type of battery.
But that would ruin the EV hit-piece narrative - funny how everyone is _suddenly_ wringing their hands over batteries now they are in vehicles - they never had a problem with phones and laptops, and no mention of cobalt usage in gasoline refining, or lithium in medicine. This is an Oil and Gas funded narrative to delay EV takeup and make sure we continue to burn fossil fuels and pollution the atmosphere, this video, and it's plastic wrapping sponsor, are not interesting in climate change.
Phosphate is the single biggest limit to life on earth. Shifting from cobalt to phosphate would put even more strain on global food production. It's also not green to mine and most deposits contain a decent amount of radioactive products. There are huge superfund sites all over Florida from phosphate mine tailings.
@@brushlessmotoring Cars use a LOT more lithium than any phone or laptop. Like, a LOT more. Multiply that by the sheer number of cars in the US, let alone the world and you have an exponential increase in lithium demand over phones, laptops etc. The science is there. We will be creating a new problem while we solve our current one. This is why I can't stand the "EV's are awesome" narrative. EV's are nice, they have upsides and help solve a current problem but god damn, people are blind to the new problems we are going to create/make much worse.
Probably because the problem of lithium still exists. It’s a step in the right direction but making it sound like it’s the ultimate solution is still not good. Lithium mining especially in less developed locations is notoriously poor for the environment. And expanding the mines will simply make the problem worse. Sam was showing the problem with lithium ion batteries and lithium production. Solid state batteries were brought up because with time they are a viable solution. LFPs aren’t.
I adore that conclusion. One of your best videos because of it. Running the theme of the video throughout and then relating it to new and current issues hit the point extra home. Goosebumps.
Scientific predictions about weather have historically been as wrong as religious predictions about the end times. The science is wrong. Co2 levels used to be higher than now in dinosaur times and life flourished because Co2 is plant food. Banning gas cars is tyranny.
@@eromod You seem to ignore a lot. The carbon dioxide levels were higher before, true. The issue is everything else, the context. Going from our levels of green house gas to way higher levels heats the planet. This makes climates change. A change in climates gives a change in circumstances for everything living. Real life example of context: if a dry area, say a place in the southwest of Asia, would get less rain as an effect of warmer air being able to absorb more water vapour (fewer clouds are formed). Less rain would make it hard for the plants to survive. This leads to what is called a drought. A decrease in available water which noticeably affects the life of the area. Droughts happen from time to time, but with a higher temperature it will happen way more. If fewer plants survive that means less food for whatever eats the plants, e.g. humans. Humans live in societies. They often want to stay in their society rather than move to another society. People have a sense of belonging to their home, both the location and its culture. In order for the society to be stable it tries to plan for bad things happening to its people. With a prolonged drought the government needs to find food for its people in other ways. If the people starves the government has to act quickly or a revolution is likely to happen. Hungry people are not planning for the long haul, it's do or die. A semi spontaneous revolution is bound to happen. A lot of different groups tries to take charge, since the straw that broke the camel's back wasn't a political one. The revolution was not politically driven. Civil war ensues. Syria is in shambles. Massive emigration, international aide that's military, monetary and humanitary. The change from one amount of green house gase to another lead to the war in Syria. Context matters. It isn't the absolute amount, it is the relative change. We've had ice ages, we've had warm periods. They came and went slowly. Now we have a rapid change. The context can't keep up with the change. Evolution of species take time so animals and plants have no chance to adapt. Humans have a chance, but capitalism and nationalism is impeding. Sea levels have risen and some people can't "go back to where they came from" because their home is playing with Atlantis, hiding under the ocean.
@@JaharNarishma Sea levels have risen? Just look up old picture of the statue of liberty compared to new pictures of the statue of liberty., The water level is the same! Plus, NASA said that in 2014, the north pole had the most ice ever recorded! All these climate "scientists" cant get their facts straight. First they said it was getting too hot, then they said it was getting too cold. Now they just call it "climate change" to say that the extreme temperature differences change. But if you look throughout history when life thrived, the temperature fluctuations are perfectly normal! CO2 is plant food and gas is a much better energy storage solution than current battery technology.
@@JaharNarishma Even if the sea levels did rise, its still moral to keep using oil because its such a superior energy storage solution. Yall could just move to Antartica because it would warm up enough to even farm and import from Canada for extra help.
@@eromodunfortunately, it's not as simple as 'move to somewhere that's cold right now but will be warmer as climate changes.' there is what's commonly called 'tipping points' in climatology, where once you pass certain threshold, the climate system either settles into a new state or into runaway instability due to positive feedback loop. 1. Conversion of ice sheets into water increases the albedo (roughly speaking, how much light/heat a surface absorbs; e.g. white surfaces absorb less light, dark surfaces absorb more light), which further drives temperature increase due to increased heat absorption. 2. Currently, the ocean is absorbing a lot of CO2 from the air, as evidenced by ecological consequences of ocean acidification reported around the world. However, gas solubility in liquid solvent decreases when temperature increases, meaning at some point, the ocean will start to release a huge amount of dissolved CO2 and currently stable methane deposits on the sea floor, exacerbating the greenhouse effect. 3. As average global temperature increases, rate of ocean evaporation also increases, and vapor is in itself a greenhouse gas, and so it will accelerate the temperature increase. While individual tipping point events may not in themselves be catastrophic (e.g. the loss of the entire antarctic ice sheet will add ~0.6C to global temperature), these tipping point events can form a cascading chain, and we don't know for sure when the cascade would end. For example we could end up like venus, where the greenhouse effect is so strong that the average surface temperature is over 400C/800F, which would make human survival impossible.
Don't you think the actual solution is turning away from a car dependent transportation system instead of relying on slightly better bateries? I expected you would touch on that subject, but it seemed to me it wasn't even considered.
@@brettvv7475 The video is about the problems with Lithium-ion batteries and solutions to them. One of the most effective solutions is to reduce overall dependency on (electric) cars, so that definitely fits in the discussion.
What i understand you to be saying is something akin to "switch to public transportation instead" And if that is the gist of what you mean, then i can say that'd most likely never work. From personal experince i'd fight tooth and nail to keep my ability to go where i want, whenever i want. And contiuning that line, even if one were to then make the arguement of taxi like cabs that'd come and get you. Well then that is so close to owning a car anyway so why bother? If i misundestod what you meant then please expand upon your idea :D
That is typical for the average car-brain American. It's not their fault for growing up in car centric America, but a good look into large European and Asian cities would certainly change their perception that cars are just a terrible concept in terms of space and resources efficiency, but time as well.
I love this realization: If we have very cheap energy, everything becomes cheap. With cheap energy you can pump lots of seawater and filter it if needed, you can extract elements from their ores through electrolysis or many energy intensive processes, you have heat, light, cold, power for movement, power for hydroponic crops, which lets you create high quality food without the land, you can create fuels with CO2 and water... Everything becomes cheap and abundant.
I think to date Volvo is the only car manufacturer to have valid data to show the actual affects of producing an ev version model of an ide identical model of its combustion counterpart on the same production line. And I think the studies may come to a great shock as to how much we still have to go in EV cars to even consider them viable comparison in purely just the production of them being "greener" then the combustion versions.
I wonder what will happen when the “brainwashed” start driving these things for awhile and wake up to the reality that they can’t compete with a real car. All the sudden the market is flooded with used Ev’s no one will buy…
I dont agree with banning combustion engines but there should be more convenient options for public transit/work from home. This would make the lithium crunch more feasible. Also reduce gas prices as demand would shrink if we could cut daily drivers in half.
personnaly i hate the idea of banning IC engine when we dont have releable replacement. There is replacement fuel like porsche did. There is nitrogene IC engine. There is WAAAYYY more than CO2 in pollution but we only talk about CO2... CO2 can be treat with planting tree... landfill cant just disappear and most ressources arnt infinite ressources. We will run out of rare material like lithium pretty quick.
@@janhammekenbuch142 i am not saying to keep only 1.. im saying that electric car isnt our way out. Just keep those technology soo compagny continu to improve them and also make new type of vehicule like hydrogene or maybe other engine we didnt discover yet.
Your figure of 31.5 million cars is wrong I think. They are proposing to ban NEW car sales by 2030, not replace all the cars in one go. There was 2.3 million new cars registered in the UK in 2019 for example.
that's only one of many factual inaccuracies that make this entire analysis comically off base. when you start from a set of "facts" that aren't true its hard to make up for that.
Seeing a Wendover video relating to solid-state batteries (the area of research I did my masters in) is surreal I’m hoping to get further qualifications at some point and work as a researcher for an institution focusing on solid-state battery research, so it’s awesome seeing the topic discussed
@@DyslexicMitochondria some comments pointed out there need to have more clarification on solid state part. Other than that , pretty informative video.
Curious, did you review how PCB's are made for the electronics and how many times those parts are shipped back and forth across the world before being final assembled and in the end use device??
Suprised you didn't mention the recyclability of these batteries as personally I think it's another big issue that could also significantly redeuce the enviromental inpact of EVs. Most batteries at the moment aren't recyclable and therefore as EVs are in early stages of development many aren't sold as second hand cars as newer ones are avaliable with doube the range etc. This is where the combustion market still dominates over EVs as second hand ICE cars are much cheaper and don't offer a significant disadvantage over new ones.
Like you said, they haven't designed the batteries for recyclability, and no one's really commercialized the recycling process, yet. It's very difficult and expensive. If there's to be any semblance of "green" to this technology, then they need to prioritize recycling. This is *far* more important than most other forms of recycling, where there isn't a market for the materials, and most is just thrown away, instead--especially since China started refusing our recyclables for recycling.
Batteries can also be repurposed later in life, even when they've lost enough capacity to no longer be helpful for EVs. EVs are the most energy intensive usage, but there are plenty more. We honestly shouldn't even need to get to the recycling stage until they've been reused for a long time. Even now, there's a market for this -- batteries have a lot of uses.
@@d_dave7200 This has been my opinion, as well. We need to use these batteries for as long as possible before recycling. Are there industries that are purchasing used EV batteries currently, though?
You know that Tesla is recycling 100% of their batteries....btw Tesla is also building their own lithium mine....btw Tesla is with the boring company and robot taxi invested in public transport....why is that left out? Tesla says, “None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfills and 100% are recycled. Every Tesla battery factory will recycle batteries on-site. As the manufacturer of our in-house cell program, we are best positioned to recycle our products efficiently to maximize key battery material recovery.”
There was a guy who used to work for Tesla and did start up a company for recycling batteries as well. But regardless that is a strong issue to EVs. I do enjoy the instant torque on my electric bike though lol.
"is it worth to allow individuals to own guns" - that part? That mentality is absurdly inverted. Let me ask you: is it worth to allow you to own any capital? capital can be used for nefarious purposes. Let's keep you poor, it's safer. Let's keep you unarmed, it's safer.
the video overall is good but i'ts missing a few points: 1) cobalt is being phased out of evs, basically everywhere 2) who is the largest consumer of cobalt? the oil industry to refine oil to be used in ice vehicles 3) missing the elphant in the room that is the new Tesla dry extraction method of mining and refining lithium 4) battery recycling will be a thing, there are already tens of companies with big funding behind them ( redwood material for example) this are just the first that comes to my mind
The manufacturers, including Tesla, of course, haven't designed their batteries for recyclability and replaceability--they want you to buy a new one. And no one's commercialized the post-consumer recycling process, yet. It's very difficult and expensive. If there's to be any semblance of "green" to this technology, then they need to prioritize recycling. This is *far* more important than most other forms of recycling, where there isn't a market for the materials, and most is just thrown away, instead--especially since China started refusing our recyclables for recycling. Ironcially, Tesla's ex-CTO and cofounder is the founder of Redwood, the only company recycling EV batteries--but that's 100% pre-consumer (manufacturing defects), and they are using a hybrid pyro/hydro solution that burns away much of the lithium and other materials. However, we need to use these batteries for as long as possible before recycling. I doubt there are any businesses that are purchasing used EV batteries for reuse currently, though. They could be useful for non-mobile usages, such as the grid. But, they'll never do that--at least not in the US.
Yes and also Australia alone has about 100 years worth of lithium supply at current rate, also in a method that is comparatively environmentally friendly to mine. It just costs more.
Hey all, Financial Analyst for the energy production industry here - this is a cool video, its true that more lithium = more water use. For future prospects check out Fe Ion batteries though. It's about 8x more profitable than lithium (which is insane!) So that's probably where the industry will go. Edit: profitability of Iron ion batteries is a large driver for change, but speed of production, social pressures, and energy density all err in favor of Iron as well
LiFePo4 (LFP) technology has it's place but it is larger and heavier for the same amount of energy delivered so it will only ever work in a class where those properties fit the engineering solution.
The matter: electric transportation is a subject I find really interesting. It all started with; if everybody have an electric car, What does it mean to recharge? Questions linked to this; - Duration when a car is fully charge? - Distance to travel with a fully charged car. - International transport. - Mail (international) - Replacement of batteries in ev's. - Gas stations - recharge stations? - From where comes the electricity to recharge stations? Personally I think that especially the European union, severely underestimate their goal; In the year 2035, only ev's are allowed. If the questions above aren't thoroughly studied, I foresee enormous problems. Resulting in a crisis unheard of. In this case, forcefully created by a union of nations.
We should take a step back and ask: why does everybody need an electric car? Is there a from of transportation that can reduce our need for cars; like the EU's already mature transit system?
@@bellairefondren7389 From time to time, this is mentioned and often returns. An issue is that companies, jobs and schools don't begin and end at the same time. Then there is the number of people that works, go to a school. One company consists of ten employee, while other companies have hundred if not more. With schools, it's the same. Another option is that companies and schools bring and take their students and employees. I think that the problem stays. Transport in general will stay an issue. Including what would be used; Electricity, gasoline, gas, water, etc. No matter what product, it will always have a negative impact on nature. Personally, with electricity, it's even more devastating; the amount of water that is needed and the pollution of that water after being used. That water cannot be used anymore. I couldn't take out this docu if that water could be filtered. But lately, water is starting to get scarce. Imagine what will happen after 5 years. When electricity is obligated. The destruction of nature will be far worse. Now everything is more expensive, it will be more expensive when that day comes. More corruption, the gap between rich and poor won't be a gap. 2 worlds. Jealousy will be the norm. Still, I do think that it's wise to think about alternatives, but it is a very bad thing to see an alternative as the ultimate solution. History already have showed and proven it several times.
@@leftrevolution7 So no where did I say transit is the "ultimate" solution. Not entirely sure what that would entail. I also don't think the complaint you brought up about start and end times being different is that big of a hurdle. You can run frequent transit throughout the day. If we want to reduce our overall energy footprint, creating walkable communities and expanding transit will need to be a major focus to of our infrastructure planning.
not really. your logic only works if cars were the only form of transportation known to exist. they arent. there is something called a train. there's also something called a bus. a bike. and legs, for walking
CATL proposed usable sodium-ion batteries, which I find very interesting. Sodium is quite abondend, cheap and easily mined. If they work as promised and maybe get better with future generations, they could be a solution as well
@@Skasaha_ Steam cars work remarkably well, if it wasn't for the whole waiting 15 minutes for your car to warm up every time you need it thing. Need groceries? 15 minutes, need to take the groceries home? 15 minutes... Other than that steam actually drives cars pretty well. Would be easy to run them on diesel or natural gas too.
The cobalt can be replaced with iron phosphate, a much less problematic substance in terms of humanitarian costs. Unfortunately this results in a heavier battery for the same capacity, but it has the added benefit of lower flammability.
When looking at the modal share around the world (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share), it becomes clear that the almost absolute car dependency of citizens in the US is also *unique* to the US. Therefore, what is really needed, is to fix zoning issues (=allow mixed development), and to build cycling and public transit infrastructure.
Bi coastal population, spread over a continent with vast plains in the middle. *That* is what’s unique about the US (and Canada), and the transportation and residence situation flows from all that.
@@Nill757 that makes sense for the mid west and rockys. But on the east coast, south and around the Great lakes you have about 2/3 of the population and with a fairly good pop density. Sure, Las Vegas and Salt Lake city probably rely more on highways to function, but there is no excuse when cities like Miami, Atlanta and Charleston work solely on personal cars
@@nazarenoperezpelicon947 Huh? Atlanta has 48 miles of subway train w 30+ stations, and a huge bus service. How is that only cars? Miami is on the ocean, water table in your face. What exactly do you expect them to do, knock down all the buildings to run surface trains?
@@Nill757 No. Most cities were buldozed to make space for cars in the 50s and 60s. It didn't use to be this way and the US used to have a world-class public transit system before WWII for example
I have to disagree with a statement you made at 11:40 - yes, it’s true that *one way* for solid-state batteries to become cost-competitive is for production to be scaled up and the price to be brought down. But another way is for traditional li-ion costs to go high enough that solid-state ends up cheaper. If left alone, these issues should solve themselves fairly quickly. Rising cobalt, nickel, and lithium prices will create big incentives for greater investment in efficient mining, use, and recycling of those materials, and also competing technology at the same time. Given enough study and effort, solutions will be found, even if it’s as simple as the higher prices making it profitable to pay off everybody necessary in Nevada. The great thing to remember is that the situation at every point in the supply chain may not be the same tomorrow as it is today. When prices are allowed to rise naturally as products become more scarce, alternatives will be sought out and implemented. Love the work and thought you put into this! You earned a subscriber today 🙂
Na-ion batteries look quite promising, for starters. Sadly, I see too many people dismiss the whole idea of electric vehicles (or anything other than a diesel/gas engine!). Human ingenuity has surmounted plenty of obstacles before, much to the surprise of the historical critics of progress. I believe we have reasons to be optimistic in this case.
How about reduce the need for car ownership in the first place? It's much more economical to give people the choice of owning or renting a car for small menial task. Planning and zoning areas where everything is so spread out where the residents have no choice but to spend unnecessary cost of having a car to get them where they need is very wasteful.
My main concern isn't pricing or efficiency; more than anything else, it's sustainability. Having every car in a continent and perhaps the world hooked up to a limited resource like helium is a *VERY* dangerous and stupid idea. When we run out, we're talking colonial America type shit until they can get the oil reliant cars and oily supply back up. Am I against lithium-ion batteries? In concept, God no. Do I think this sudden and abrupt shift towards them is a good idea? Nope because the technology just isn't there yet. If we can produce millions of lit-ion Cara and have them last until they're written off or at least ten years than fantastic. Problem is current lit-ion batteries only last like five or six at the most expensive which most won't pay for anyway and that's not accounting for how wasteful we are when it comes to cars. Toyota brings out a new car and you have to dispose of your older male for that new hip trendy car if ya know what I mean. Multiple times this year, I've had to talk my mother down from doing just that because the differences between models is negligible at best and non-existent at worst. If these car batteries become extremely long lasting then I'll be first in line to get an electric car. For now though, the prospect of an entirely lithium-ion powered Europe and UK genuinely scares me. That's also not getting into the propensity for lit-ion batteries to explode but I don't know if that's because of the E-Scooters being shit, a manufacturing issue when they're being fitted for E-Scooters or a problem native to the batteries themselves.
14:48, "Anyone who argues the opposite is..." basically bad. That is a dangerous statement. I read, from a respected scientific magazine here in my country, that EV do emit less emissions only when a certain number of KMs are reached, and that number was also heavily influenced by the energy sources used to charge the EV (as in, if you charge it in Iceland which is mostly geotermical an EV has much less emissions than if you charge it in china, heavily coal reliant). That seems to me a much more credible, balanced statemente than your arrogant assumption than everyone stating that EV do not emit less emissions is misinformed or trying to disinform.
I agree it's a dangerous statement, but I understand where it's coming from. It really HAS been proven a thousand times not just in studies but also meta studies. If that research you quote reached another conclusion, it's extremely likely they had a conflict of interest or made mistakes. Most of the times these studies ignored things like clean energy generation, battery recycling, took worst case scenarios for EVs while taking best case scenarios for ICE, etc. Is it possible that they are right and the 95% that reached another conclusion were wrong? Yes, but it's not likely.
@@jakubmatys8860 agreed. although im biased to believe the more pessimistic approach. also it sounds more believable. Using coal to generate electricity to power an EV is going to be less efficient than gasoline
Every model of emissions attributed to EV production that I’ve looked at has been so flawed that I can only suspect that the flaws are intentional. There are two mistakes that I’ve seen in every model. Lithium brine is a low emissions lithium extraction method. Until recently, half of the world’s lithium production comes from brine extraction. Lithium brine also makes up the lion’s share of proven lithium reserves, meaning that emissions will not linearly grow with substantially increased lithium production. Secondly, the biggest modeling mistake that I see is that all emissions from rock mining are attributed to the mine’s lithium production. Hard rock mines that produce lithium also produce tin, aluminum, gemstones and other metals and minerals. It’s deceptive to attribute all emissions from a mine to lithium alone. There is significant carbon and ecological cost to lithium mining, but not even well meaning publications can be trusted to correctly discuss and model these costs.
@@boldvankaalen3896 Wonderful recommendation. Thank you! Within the first minute of the first video I watched he succinctly nailed the “why” regarding problem - in the academic world the emissions savings over ICE is already well understood, so any new publication is just a retread and won’t gather academic interest. Since new research wouldn’t be different than old research it wouldn’t get clicks in media publications. As a result, new bad models keep getting pushed in the media while good models get ignored.
That just makes it even more obvious how bad ICEs are. All these errors on the EV side of the equation and the EV still wins in the end. How much worse would the ICEs look if the numbers were corrected? Or if anyone accounted for all the stuff ICEs use? There's always talk about "EVs get electricity from power plants that burn fossil fuels!" but I never hear anyone mention how much electricity (also from those fossil fuel plants) gets used to refine oil into gas, how much fossil fuels are burned by trucks to get the gas to the gas station, and how much fossil fuel powered electricity the gas stations use.
@@mjc0961 EVs are not the end all be all. Also you don’t seem to understand how clean modern ICE cars are. For instance on Sulevs the exhaust leaving the vehicle is cleaner than what went in.
@@mjc0961 you will never hear the other side of it... The people pushing the narrative of "EV bad" are being obtuse on purpose. I've said it before: Shilling Hard
You’re forgetting about electric planes. Energy density would be even more important for electric planes. Planes are much more expensive to begin with and need much more batteries. They may help provide the scale to drop solid state battery prices first.
@@kennguyen693 and possibly put more emphasis on boats over planes? Google says a cargo ship can travel 578 miles per gallon compared to 4.5 mpg for planes. Downsides being boats take a lot longer to transport and the risk of further polluting the ocean which is already a big enough issue.
Dear Mr. Wen Dover, your humanity, while explaining the moral tradeoffs, without a shadow of doubt, opened a great many people's third eye. I just wanted to thank you for that. Helluva job you're doing. You sir are a good egg.
Recycling and reusing batteries will likely be one way to cut on the emission caused by mining. Reusing car batteries in solar farms for example could be a way to reduce emissions.
A lot more countries have "promised" that they will ban the sale of *New* ICE vehicles by the next few years. But the second hand market will be there for people's needs. The other cars won't disappear from existence.
Exactly, but that actually alleviates the lithium issue. The video guy is assuming all vehicles will entirely pop out of existence that that there were no EV sales before that point, and that there is no transition period to buffer the lithium demand increase... granted, it is still a problem, but his math and point assume no lithium recycling and a 100% immediate shift towards lithium batteries. Reality is that announcing a future limit on hydrocarbon using vehicles will increase the demand now, ramp up slowly towards the phase out date, then continue increasingly gradually as old vehicles exit the market. This still represents a giant increase in lithium demand, but isn't as severe and sharp as they make it sound.
And in a lot of countries those "promises" will be altered and postponed when the time nears because the production of electric vehicles can just not keep up with the demand and surely never will in only a decade. Even if people wanted. The amount of investment and above all the time required won't allow it.
great video - I'm glad you are tackling this issue that few people are aware of and presenting it in such a compelling and objective way. Also: "CHINA...." *cuts to photo of LosAngeles* 4:13
@@bthemedia But they are - at least the ones used for electric vehicles. The ones used in consumer electronics ............. people tend to throw away, but only because they can't be bothered/don't realise the damage they are doing. Oil, used as fuel is definitely not recyclable, yet few seem to raise this as an issue and seem to think that burning it in our vehicles is OK.
Lithium seems very fundamental, it is so extremely fitting the purpose, while being extremely light, it has just one proton more than Helium. But it could be replaced by sodium (Na). That is available, cheap and practically unlimited, in the NaCl in seawater, for example. Replacing lithium by sodium would be a minor setback in energy per battery weight, but solve the lithium supply problem permanently. Batteries without cobalt are already in use, cobalt is not a long term problem.
Yeah exactly... India is already mass-testing this technology. As you said, the only big downside is battery density. But the pros outweigh the cons, like for real. Environmentally-friendly, cheaper, lighter in weight, and more.
@@Lauren_C I've heard that they charge faster while being more safer as well. But we'll have to wait wait till late 2022 or early 2023 for this new "Sodium-Ion" tech to be showcased to the world, coz currently its undergoing research and testing.
ICE vehicles account for a tiny amount of total CO2 emissions worldwide. Eliminating them completely with EVs would hardly affect global CO2 emissions. Cruise ships emit far more CO2 than ICE cars do. The only reason why people complain so much about them is because they're an easy target.
each car produces enough heat to warm a whole house. We have these things running around everywhere to transport one person at a time in 5000lbs metal boxes. They are an easy target because they were always a stupid idea.
8:26 "oh no, child labour", as if tire rubber, upholstery leather, mica for paint, and so on doesn't have the same issues. DW made a great documentary on where tires come from.
The other solution is to drastically reduce our reliance on cars. Obviously we can't and shouldn't get rid of them entirely, but we know that it's possible to make places where people don't need to drive to survive, and we have the technology, know-how and experience to start doing that right now. That seems like the obvious and easiest solution
Also people would be able to save so much money if they didn't need to buy or lease cars. Why can't we advocate for fast, reliable, and economical public transport? Oh, I know. People have become lazy and can't even imagine walking a minute or two outside their house.
Have cities designed with walkability and ease of public transportation. Then encourage car renting for when they want to get out of town for a weekend.
Yes. A bike, bus or train is much more effective per weight in transporting people around. It's easy to scream freedom if it's freedom for only yourself.
Well done, a thorough and intelligent insight into a truly 21st-century problem. I enjoyed every microsecond of your clearly enunciated, powerfully worded, logical assessment of one of the most important issues of our time. Thank you. I was transfixed.
I'd have to disagree. First of all the video focuses on EVs. Yet, more of these materials are needed for mobile devices and tools, than for EVs. Second, It frames the problem as new, current and pressing disregarding the fact that these problems have been criticized for 20 years. Unfortunately back then there was no one interested in the criticism since no one could use it for his anti EV argument. Furthermore, he's fantasizing about solid state, a tech promised to be "around the corner" in 2016, while post lithium tech and LFP batteries are already available or currently launching, but most importantly, this has been a delaying effort for years: "look, solid state is around the corner, better buy a combustion engine now and wait for solid state tech". Creating hopes for solid state is a fatal signal.. Then it completely disregards the fact, that there's almost a decade left to ramp up production and everybody in the industry is heavily investing in it. It just gives one especially bad example of trying to access new lithium sources, while there are many others. Lastly, the video makes it seem, like this is an EV problem but it's a systematic problem. Many materials hav similar if not worse mining conditions if not worse. Again, since nobody can use it as an argument against EVs nobody knows about this. The biggest problem of the century is not lithium. The biggest problem is the climate crisis and the misleading information and ignorance that prevents the world from acting on it, like it would be necessary. Disclaimer: i'm not saying these problems should be disregarded, only that nobody should think 'oh well, better stick to my diesel truck' because even though mining is bad, mining and burning oil is worse and with proper pressure, these problems can be solved.
There needs to be a shift in the way people think of what's the max range they need. Shifting from the worst case road trips, to the 95% uses case. And we need to build a range of battery size options. It's not efficient to be lugging around an extra 80Kwh of batteries when you only need 20 for your everyday commute. It would be cheaper for a lot of people to buy a lower range EV that matches their commute, and renting a long range EV or swapping cars with a friend for road trips. My car has around a 60-70 mile range with it's usable 15Kwh. And that's just about perfect for me, with a 25 mile one way commute. If my town had a DC fast charger it would be even better. The average US commute is around 40 miles round trip. I would love to see cheap EVs with 80-160 mile range.
It's hilarious that energy density and weight reduction of a battery pack can be mentioned without bringing up that 100 kwh can just be cut in half and be easily viable. Consumer mentality and certain cult leaders in the industry are truly unfortunate.
This isn't what consumers want. They want range they can use sometimes for long-distance trips. The idea of owning a car but still needing to rent another one if they want to go somewhere far will never fly with most people.
That sounds pretty nice, at the moment I live go to a college which is 6 hours away from my home, but in the future I plan on living in a small town somewhere so my commute to work each day would probably only be a 30 mile round trip. I wouldn't need any sort of high battery ev. I just wish we had a good bus system so I wouldn't need a car though.
But what if you want to go on vacation and you need to drive a long distance. Hiring a car for vacation is incredebly expensive. and so it is a waste to have a car with the short range and even with teslas it is still very timeconsuming. I drive to france pretty much every year so i dont want an electric car.
The answer is to follow the lead of the EU and charge corporate CEOs with one count of "Ecocide" for every month they don't think up a miraculous problem-free energy source. Punishment will make them smarter, the same way it did Russian industrialists under Stalin.
Something that bothers me is that after hearing about the issues with cobalt and lithium, rather than trying to fix those issues or talk more about public transport, a lot of people just go "lithium bad" and then continue as normal with exponential extraction of oil and gas and multiple petrol cars per household.
Also buying a new iPhone every year, not realizing hmmm what powers that? That same lithium that was "bad" for cars is apparently just fine for them to buy a whole new phone with a whole new battery every year instead of keeping the same one for 3-4 years.
Because people are only interested in real solutions. Not fantasies. To suggest public transit is the answer shows that you are so ignorant as to not be entitled to have an opinion as the matter That's like suggesting that the solution to poor communities not having internet access is to just use the post office. While technically a solution, it's such a useless solution as to be no solution at all.
in the near future, I see only the upper class being able to afford 60k+ for EV, privately commute and use the run ways. it solves traffic in and out of metropolitan areas significantly, especially in NYC (traffic on the LIE495, nothern state parkway is a nightmare. trust me it saves the government a **** ton of money as they don't need to expand highways to meet population demands). and the mid to lower class commuting via EV buses...an endeavor to banning gas powered engines by the next decade is not a dreamland, as you think... save the environment, narrow to ozone layers, save the seals, save the AIR! yea im for it 100%, but when you are scrapping crumbs to just GO by, and you are required BY LAW to have an ELECTRIC VEHICLE to be on the road that is WAY WAY WAYYYY out of your budget, it will start affecting your livelihood. they need to make these vehicles more affordable. its the same concept of why HIV medications and new diabetes/ dementia medications are SO expensive. its the pharmaceutical companies and corporal GREED. do you really think labor and materials are significantly costlier to manufacture one tesla vehicle vs a toyota/hyundai/ you name it....? sometimes the government needs to think more out of the box, rather than enforcing a "decree."
Ev manufacturers and dealers are saying ev batteries are safe, kind of reminds me of tobacco producers saying the same thing about their products,.... we all know how that turned out !!
How about... reducing individual car use? You can make cities magnitudes more comfortable and reduce carbon emissions without increasing Li and Co production so much.
@@legobin7963 As someone who use mostly public transport, I also want faster metro, but I also realise, that average speed of car in city is hardly about the limit (which is often around 50 - 60 km/h) an it's far away from 110km/h. In smaler towns, there will be need for car much longer, althrough It could be also reduced in peaks by public transport from "place to live" to "place to work".
@@legobin7963 So you'd rather use your car and drive slowly through the city while stopping at every light than using the metro, if it's not going 110 km/h? Yeah, that's as dumb as it sounds.
It's utterly dwarfed by the big four. Even Boliva only got a passing mention, merely because it's in a triangle with Chile and Argentina. Bolivia is believed to have one of, if not *the*, largest lithium stores.
EVs are also harmful for the environment. Cycling for short distance and public transport for long distance are the only solutions to reduce pollution in transport sector. Using a 2Ton piece of metal to transport 1 or 2 people is never going to be "ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY"
No. But it's much MORE environmentally friendly than driving a 2 ton piece of metal with Gas or Diesel. A fundamental change in the way we do people transport is BIG process. Exchanging combustion for electric where feasible is a way to alleviate the problem.
THIS. Something people don’t talk about enough is that we can lower transport emissions by designing cities and infrastructure in such a way that we don’t rely on driving.
@@Killerpixel11 short term yes. But we end up with a recycling problem, in which we just end dumping all our recycling to the third world. Like another wendover video that was mentioned last year. EV production is not the magic bullet. It would help in our immediate area, but would still have far reaching consequences when it reaches the end of its cycle life. Brain4breakfast has a good video regarding lithium production.
As an EV-owner, I have these discussions a lot and I'd like to add one major argument here, that I missed: Recycling of Li-Ion batteries. Companies are already setting up or are set up in a small scale (such as Duesenfeld here in GER) and can regain a %-age of well above 90 from those batteries. Of course, large scale isn't done yet, because the batteries a) last very long in the cars (good thing) and b) often get a second life as stationary storage somewhere (also good), but my hope is, that the ramp-up of Lithium mining will plateau out some day. But of course, this will be far in the future.
BEV's make up something like 3% of the global market. How many resources does it take to get to %15? I worked in batteries for years, they are horrible polluters and should only be looked as a suspect partial solution.
"But of course, this will be far in the future." I mean...considering that lithium reserves are expected to run dry within our lifetime...maybe not so far in the future after all..
@@meatsafemurderer7743 What is the expected life of the lithium reserve? I asked because I don't know and it's another important information to know. I'm curious on how they have determine the life and when it may run out. All of my long life I have heard one resource or another will run out in X amount of time. One example is oil will run out in ten years. Ten years came and went and another study said, it will run out in 15 years. Yet a third study would say, we have less than 5 years. Your information will give me a benchmark, and no if it is proven wrong I won't come after you. Like me you can only go with what you have read.
"because the batteries a) last very long in the cars" Yeah, until they explode and kill someone, then require a massive amount of water to put out. (also, nice pfp)
this channel and real life lore are miracles in our days, especially when they equipped you with the great information that we need in our life. thank you for every effort that you have spent. I am from Iraq.
The magic word here is "PUBLIC TRNSIT SYSTEMS" instead of electrifying cars we need to focus on moving away form our reliance on cars and if anything new smart cities should be developed where public transit is practical.
An electric bus is definitely better than an electric car, also some things like subways, maglevs, and trolleys can be permanently plugged in to the grid and so don't need batteries. (For primary locomotion anyway) Obviously these are city centric solutions bit considering how most people live in cities its a very good starting point. Rural regions will always need some variation of the personal car (especially in cold areas) but cities shouldn't have them in the downtown area at all.
@@jasonreed7522a coal burning locomotive train replacing a hundred cars will probably still end up being a net benefit in terms of environmental consequences. We don't need fancy experimental EV buses, we need cheap buses that already roll off production lines in scale, that are so readily available that people stop bothering with driving. We can worry about electrifying the buses after the primary issue of replacing cars with mass transit is sorted out.
Remember that we have to compare this negative environmental impact to that of gas and oil extraction. When the lithium has been extracted it can be reused, oil and gas cannot.
One thing Sam should get tons of credit for is the story organization. This is an INCREDIBLY complex story and he's done a phenomenal job turning it into a well-organized, easy-to-understand story
also thought provoking I'm siting here questioning my moral line.
Much better than the CNBC one
Sam is incapable of doing sub perfection
@@liquidKi American problems require American solutions
agreed, his presentation skills are top notch.
“Artisinal mining” is such a classy way of phrasing forced child labor in unsafe conditions
Seriously, hats off to whoever came up with that
Those child slaves are _artisans_!
Artisinal doesn mean "forced child labor", it means something is made in traditional or non mechanized way. Pay attention to a word " traditional ", child labor in mines there common thing for hundreds maybe even thousands of years. It has to stop obviously, but it doesn't mean that anything named Artisinal includes child labor.
@@JackieWelles he didn’t state that it did. He implied that they have misused the term and been creative in their use of the term
@@AlexG-wk3nh Even so, the term they use is not wrong. Child labor is much bigger problem because its not just about mining, those families don't have enough money or chances to earn money anywhere else. This is often not some forced labor rather people not having a choice and I blame governments who allow people to fall that far!
In my country there's an issue where people mine for coal in makeshift shafts. Of course it is totally black market with lots of injuries and deaths. The word for it translates directly in english to "Poverty Shafts". Good to know we can now call them artisans, or maybe craft coal?
Very well said. I'm in the mining industry and I often tell friends that there is no such thing as ethical cobalt, and that the massive battery boom is going to be powered by unethical mining in central Africa. People tend to not register or believe me. It's just too inconvenient to admit that almost everything about our 21st century lifestyle is made possible by child labour in the DRC, and too easy to ignore unfortunately.
Is it really better with oil? I mean, sure, there is oil produced in the U.S. or Norway, but a large portion of the world's supply comes from oppressive, non-democratic regimes with little regard to environmental impact.
@@lukfi89 The global south needs to be able to nationalize its oil and lithium (i.e. Bolivia) to allow the profits from that mining to develop the country, rather then for the enrichment of a few corrupt, local politicians and western capitalists.
@@wellingtonaviationchannel634 yes, just like Venezuela did... now all the oil profits are going to develop the country, not to Maduro pockets
@@sllgrecco Before oil nationalization, Venezuelas oil was being funneled offshore to American oil companies. After nationalization the money was funded into Venezuelan social programs to feed the poor, until the US slapped 155+ sanctions on them starving their economy.
@@wellingtonaviationchannel634 Venezuela was the richest south american country before Chavez. By the way, Bolivia already nationalized his oil production years ago, no poor saw it's profits.
I just read a bunch of the comments and not a single one has mentioned how all these EVs will bring many (or most) power grids to their knees or worse. The infrastructure simply isn't in place to handle the kind of demand charging all of those vehicles will require. California is already begging their citizens to try and charge their EVs in "off" hours so as not to cause brown outs and outages. I can't imagine how things will work when the number of EVs multiplies like they want.
To be fair nearly all of Americas Electric Grid is desperately needing upgrades with most of them being built before the 1970's and haven't seen upgrades for decades.
But yes EV's will indeed put a strain on yhe Grid but practically everything else can be classified as bringing the Grid a burden without good reason like Adverts on Billboards and Screens and AC Usage
EV’s should raise electric costs (by rough zero scientific calculation) of something like 40 kWh per car per day. We could say it would double household electricity consumption (but not industrial consumption).
Let’s give a rough number, say 70% increase in electric grid usage.
It is high, but not disqualifying. Solar panels are becoming increasingly prevalent in sunny regions, such as california. Those output those 40 kWh a day. Their growth will cover a big chunk of those 70% increase.
The flattening of the power usage will be a win for utilities. Energy storage technologies will help. That will reduce waste and lower peak demands.
I find the grid problem to be lesser than the battery supply chain problem. A notable problem, but fixable.
But overall, is it better for the environment ?
I am a geologist and every time I say this to someone who's on about electric cars will fix everything... The issue is more how much we are using raw materials not what we are using... We reached peak mining in 1980s for most raw material, every years it's getting more and more expensive to mine these resources... Sadly our entire economic system is measured by growth which can only be fulfilled by more mining more resources
Yes, that's the key problem. Continuous growth required by our monetary system.
You can always expand in services, pretty much what Japan did.
MJ japans population is shrinking. By 2050 there will 25% smaller population there.
@@MJ-uk6lu You mean like a service economy? How does that fix anything? Service economies rely on industrial and manufacturing economies for their equipment, supplies, etc..
Hydrogen must be the answer then
Great video as always, however you did made one mistake concerning solid state batteries, they will mostly likely not decrease the usage of the mentioned metals. This is due to a mixup between energy density and energy content. As of now the energy content (so capacity) defining part of a battery is the cathode. So for an imaginary battery pack with 100 kWh of standard lithium ion batteries one needs at least the same amount of cathode as for a 100 kWh battery pack of solid state batteries (even if there is a significant weight difference between the batteries, explaining the different energy density). The difference then is in the anode and the electrolyte, for state of the art batteries a mix of silicon and graphite is used as anode and a solution of usually lithium hexaflourophosphate in organic solvents is used as electrolyte, while in the case of for example Quantumscape Lithium metal is planned to be used as anode and a ceramic made up out of Lithium, Lanthanum, Zirconium and Oxygen will be used as electrolyte. So for most solid state batteries there will be more lithium required per kWh! Better solutions for alleviating the problem of metal demand however do exist, for example LFP cathodes, which require Lithium but no Nickelr or Cobalt (as used by Tesla in their standard range Model Y and 3) or Sodium-Ion batteries (not as much industrialized and applicability for EVs not proven, but in the product pipeline of CATL). But again otherwise great video, more people need to be educated on the ramifications of the required electrification of the mobility sector.
Hmm
Watching the section on solid state I kept wondering "what are solid state batteries made out of?"
With solid state battery, you will need a little less energy content for the same range, because you will be carrying less battery with you. So you can reduce Co and Ni (not Li though).
But I think LFP is the future.
@@jonhanson8925 Basically the same materials can be used for Anode and Cathode as for conventional batteries. So for cathode we have the typical NMC/NCA and LFP materials, but it is also possible to use other materials like Vanadium oxide, but a lot of additional R&D is required to commercialize those, which is unlikely considering the available materials. At the anode side we have the main reason for the higher energy density of solid state batteries, due to less chemical reactions at the anode-electrolyte interface Lithium metal can more easily be used, which boosts the energy density tremendously ( Graphite has a capacity of ~370 mAh/g while Lithium has 3860 mAh/g). The biggest promise however is to use only the copper current collector as the anode, on which the Lithium from the NMC deposits during charging, omitting the anode material completely would of course be a huge plus for the energy density (and eliminate material use and thus cost). But as you probably can imagine this is rather hard to accomplish outside the lab. Where the biggest difference is, is of course the electrolyte and separator. Here the solid electrolyte acts at the same time as a separator, so no need for that. As materials there are three main classes: ceramics (like the LLZO from Quantumscape), sulfidic (Don't know from top of my head which company uses those but they often consist of Lithium, sulfur, phosphor and some other materials) and lastly there are organic, polymer type electrolytes (do not have an example right now), those are already commercialized by blue solutions. However all have their problems, e.g. the blue solution batteries need to be heated to ~60°C to have sufficient conductivity for the Li ions.
@@kingofurukgilgamesh7828 Yeah you are completely right, one would require a smaller battery for the same range due to the reduced weight, but i have no idea how strong that impact would be
of course, hellofresh will help me reduce my impact on the environment by packing literally everything in an absurd amount of plastic.
Yeah this sponsorship doesn't add up. There are far more economic and environmental friendly options than this.
Lmaoo that's true😂
@@hiiamelecktro4985 paypal me 3000£
Yeah. Almost all the green marketing are worse.
What's worse is he blatantly declares it as a way to decrease your emissions. This is shameful. The guy is just a fucking sellout.
As for lithium, there's a reason it's found in dry places. It's because lithium salts are dissolved by water, so they get accumulated and concentrated only in dry places.
through evaporation i guess?
@@imalittletoxicjustalittle yes, the rocks are actually called evaporites because of the fact they are "created" via evaporation
Don't play into the global warming scam electric death.
@@ricktd6891 you sound a lot like the guys who used to say electricity kills back in the AC vs DC wars
@@MrOpenGL Are you a child? Go learn some science and don't play with electricity. You won't be able to handle it and you might die.
The irony of HelloFresh sponsorship is pretty strong here. Every ingredient uses disposable, one-time-use packaging, and each shipment requires another freezer pack and high cost individual shipping. It produced a laughable amount of plastic waste compared to shopping at a grocery store.
It's for lazy people
What do you expect
Humans love of convenience is gonna be a hard habit to break for sure!
@@ymj4256 let's judge. His comment is valid. Your isn't.
If read closely, he's pointing out the irony in the vid. Your comment gave no perspective.
That’s why I stopped HelloFresh as well… for PRODUCE food! 🤦♂️ at least use compostable bags
Ok with all due respect, Hello Fresh being more eco-friendly? Individually shipping individually wrapped and contained meals to homes... there may be less food waste but I'm more than skeptical about their overall impact being lower than traditional ways of obtaining groceries.
Thing is, produce at the store also uses a lot of packaging. Ever buy a lot of eggs, like multiple dozen? Fruits come into the store like that, in a cardboard box, individually separated by more cardboard, sometimes in foam sleeves. Workers take them out of there before putting them on display. I don’t know if that outweighs how much Hello Fresh does, I’m just saying there’s hidden costs that you might no be considering.
@@intan4722 what? I used to work in food logistics as a supervisor and have never seen that apart from ecologically produced fruit for the rich and pretentious.
Have you ever actually tried hello fresh? The amount of extra plastic is very small. The meals come in recycled paper bags with the whole thing in a recycled cardboard box. The vegetables have less packaging than you often get in the supermarket. Where you do get extra is in the small ingredients like you get a sachet of vinegar rather than using some out if a bottle. But overall the quantity of plastic is not much higher. The meals aren't shipped individually you get one delivery a week which is no different than most people would do driving to the supermarket anyway.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 what the f* kinda vegetables you people buy that comes with packaging. Its vegetables.
@@Strafprozessordnung ? Do you buy all your vegetables from local farmers markets only and expect that's how it works everywhere on the planet? Because unfortunately it doesn't. People buy bags of potatoes, carrots and onions... Strawberries, blueberries, mushrooms etc all come in plastic boxes. Even when picking your own produce, you're given plastic bags to put them in to weigh. For someone working in "food logistics" you sound weirdly clueless about how much plastic is everywhere.
"How much bad should be allowed for the greater good?" The question with which this video ends is not only applicable for EVs but for a lot of things. That is such a powerful question.
utilitarian ethics is all about this.
This implies that there is no existence or reduction in badness in the world. Aren't we as consumers committing bad deeds every day by the way we consume and by how much?
Nagasaki and Hiroshima were bad allowed for the greater good, you like or not.
Yeah, forcing tree huggers to make difficult decisions makes this conflict so much more interesting
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
no one's talking about the radon gas that gets kicked up from the mines/ground from the drilling for lithium, and the green acid sludge that companies let sit at mining sites from the extraction process left to percolate and destroy ground water and lakes and streams cause no one wants to deal with that stuff or rather have no solution to that huge waste problem
It's almost like this fake green revolution is worse for the environment than our gas cars...cars that only account for 16% of the world's C02 production.
Radon is produced by the decay of radioactive elements (U, Th, etc) in the earth's crust.
It seeps out EVERYWHERE. Doesn't matter whether you dig or not.
It also has a very short half life (~3.8 days).
It becomes a problem in CLOSED rooms, not out in the open (like open pit mines).
Well its almost like people believe that they care about the planet, or ther people.
SO TRUE. THESE GUYS LIE LIKE A RUG.
"how much bad should be allowed for the greater good" damn that hit hard
I hate to tell you kid, that's the way the world works.
It's creepy
@@splitloopgaming3523 That's a bad take away. The point is there are always unintended or undesirable consequences for every choice, no matter how well intended.
Very Machiavellian
the age old doctrine of "the ends justify the means"
(no matter how murderous the regime is, it will be worth it for the greater good)
Cultural Marxism
Well done Sam and team
Also… BIGGEST problem with Lithium batteries 🔋 🤔 🧐
= Not recyclable! ♻️🔥🗑
@@bthemedia Not true.
@TransitNerd the issue with fuel cells is that they're only between 25-50% as efficient as just using a battery to store the energy
Nuclear Diamond Battery That Will Run For 28,000 Years. . A world without chargers .
ua-cam.com/video/FHfs3_7Q7FA/v-deo.html
Wendover Productions: "How much Bad should be allowed for the Greater Good ?"
This is by far the simplest way someone has described the issue the modern world is grappled by!
Great video, once again 🙌🏻
No it isn't, its tripe. Who's greater good? What type of bad? A lot of a little bad or a lot of a very bad? As always, it will generally be settled by who has more money. When that fails, it will be solved by who has a larger military or at least, who is more willing to send soldiers to die.
Unfortunately, this question is never answered by Society. It is answered by Money.
"nuance"
It’s literally scarcity economics. There are no solutions, only compromises.
@@cccycling5835 lithium, coal, oil, solar radiation, wind. None of these are scarce.
How reusable/recyclable are the batteries after their end of life?
100% lithium recovery?
50% recovery?
Are we going to be facing a massive pollution problem from these batteries being tossed in landfills or storage like with plastic bottles, used solar panels, used wind turbines?
They are 98% recyclable, the remaining 2% is just some plastic which we hopefully will also be able to recycle one day
Yes and no. By hand they can be disassembled and used to make more batteries. But 95% of lithium batteries go to the landfill. It costs less to make batteries from new. The nickel and cadmium are extracted but that is all. What you should really be worried about is water. Contaminating and pumping 500,000 gallons of water per ton of lithium is an environmental disaster on a global scale. That alone should halt this ev market in it's tracks
Due to the nature of the recycling methods, it would actually generate more carbon emissions to recycle them than it would take to make new batteries.
@@SmokeElectronics It makes sense that tiny batteries in small electronics aren't recycled, but the amount of recyclable material in an EV is enormous. Tossing it in a landfill tossing out profit.
Europe might be banning Lithium due to this. They are horrible for the environment, which is a reason why solar panels and wind turbines are bad for the environment (and why nuclear is the way to go)
I feel like you really should have touched on the fact that there are two major types of lithium mining. The type of lithium mining you started this video mentioning in Australia is a completely different process than the type of mining being proposed at Thacker pass. I am sure you are aware of the difference but I doubt most people know that lithium is mostly extracted via evaporation rather than traditional mining that you introduced this video with.
Care to explain the differences for most people?
@@RetroDawn nah he'll just say there is a difference and give no context or sources. "extracted via evaporation" oh yes now i completely understand
@@RetroDawn The images of the salt lakes and ponds produces lithium brine - a salt solution which is concentrated through evaporation and some refining to purify. The Australian lithium mine shown produces pegmatites, a type of ore (usually about 5-6%) that requires refining and processing into a usable concentrate. Brine type lithium requires a vast quantities of water and land for ponds where as lithium mining uses much more energy to extract and process but this is usually cheaper at scale. If we can use more sustainable energy sources for mining I suspect pegmatites will be cheaper and more sustainable in the long term.
Video was clear about the large amount of water required for evap recovery of Li, the most common method and the one required at Thatcher should it happen.
@@Nill757
But that is mostly toxic salt water and not quite comparable to drinking water.
And it isn't a required method as he has shown later in the video there are other methods of getting the salt put of the water.
Correction: the UK will ban the sale of NEW internal combustion vehicles. The second hand market will be unaffected and if prices do not decrease most people will simply buy a second hand petrol or diesel...
Get ready for new taxes on used ICE vehicles that will discourage ownership, or they’ll simply pass a mandate to ban all ICE vehicles…
@@dredilla-iceman they dont need to, they will break at some point and gasoline will not be available everywhere anymore
And then how do they expect all those people to be able to afford a brand new electric car when the values of all of their gas and diesel vehicles fall through the floor that they would need to sell to be able to afford a new vehicle 🤔
@@japopo5533 ever heard of second hand EVs ? I swear it's a thing.........
@@japopo5533 Use public transport, duh.
I bought an electric bicycle to see if it was feasible to commute to work with it. And not only was it feasible, it was very easy and saved me thousands of dollars and time over a year. I think the answer is that more people need to avoid using cars as much as they can.
I agree, and city planning can do a lot towards those goals, making it more comfortable even for the fewer drivers that can't choose to use a bike for example because of their payload .
Hell yeah we need more bike paths!
It’s -20f with windchill where I am. Definitely not feasible.
Good for you, we’re not all rich like you that we can afford to not drive cars. Don’t let rich coastal elites make expensive decisions for you. Most of us can’t ride your tricycle to work as we live in cheaper areas away from city center
@@mrb152 where i live (mid atlantic DC area) the coldest it gets is around 20f. Had to wear a lot warm clothes and face covering, but I did it. Batteries probably won't work when it's that cold, but yeah i get that it wont work for everyone, but the idea is that for those who can do it, should...
Laughed out loud at the sponsor at the end of the video being Hello Fresh. After 20 minutes of green talk, a sponsorship from a company that packages each tiny ingredient in plastic, then ships it to you? I know that the creator is smart enough to know that this plastic is indeed not 'recyclable'.
Sponsorships make the algorithm go round
The global warming scam is nothing but environmental damage and animal and human genocide.
@@ricktd6891 You're saying it's all fake? As opposed to companies wanting you to believe it's fake so they can keep doing what they've always done
@@VitaeLibra The problem with what you're saying is you're assuming what they said is true and CO2 is some kind of pollution and therefore companies have been polluting the planet with it. That's the opposite of the truth. Atmospheric CO2 is not pollution, it's plant food and there's TOO LITTLE in the atmosphere, not too much. Life thrived in 7000 PPM and there was no catastrophic global warming.
@@VitaeLibra The dangerous level of atmospheric CO2 we're closets to is 150 PPM, at which point all plants die, all animals die, we all die. At 1200 PPM to 1600 PPM we all live and plants thrive and there's more food on the planet, not less. The Earth is actually historically cold right now too, not historically hot. Want to see it? Search : "Global temperature and atmospheric CO2 over geologic time/graph/images."
What if we increased energy efficiency with steel wheels on steel rails, and ran long extension cords above the roads so vehicles didn't need as large batteries.
Woah... are you a GENIUS or something!?!
We could even combine multiple cars and attach them together
can you say... Milwaukee Railroad
You’re sounding an awful lot like Adam something and I love it
To late I’ve thought of it already and they said no
Another option to reduce our dependency on lithium is to use smaller vehicles that need smaller batteries. If there was better bike infrastructure, more people could bike to work and do errands. eBikes and eScooters use batteries that are 100 300 times smaller than EVs. Not everybody would like or is able to switch for various reasons, and that's fine. We just need to make micro mobility a viable alternative so people can have a real choice.
Why not just apply that logic to existing vehicles? Oil drilling doesn’t require this kind of environmental damage.
eBikes and eScooters have an even more carbon efficient version. Bikes and Scooters.
@@JayVal90 it would definitely help. The only issue is that gas-powered bikes and scooters can be very polluting due to more relaxed environmental rules for them, also they're really loud even vs gas cars. Manual bikes are good but not everyone can or is willing to sweat to go to work. eBikes and scooters seem to be the best of both worlds with no emissions and little to no sweat (unless you want to)
@@rustyslug2943 Bikes, yes, but not scooters. Escooters are, like electric cars, better than ICE ones. The expansion of production is difficult, but wouldn’t be required to such a scae with smaller batteries.
@@rustyslug2943 agreed. But not everybody wants or can use manual bikes/scooters for a multi-mile trip. If it's for transportation we want as many people as possible using them including grandmas, and people out of shape (like me). The good news is that they both use the same infrastructure so advancements for one help the other
As a chemical engineer researching electrochemical energy systems and storage, I'd say this is quite accurate. However, there are certainly more challenges relating to solid state batteries than just cost. Namely, charging takes a lot longer and they are more prone to degradation and have poor cycle stability in relation to Li-ion batteries. Also- from my understanding they are more affected by temperature, making them nearly unusable in cold weather. Not mentioning this stuff makes us scientists and engineers look like a bunch of bumbling idiots LOL
The cost of the metals used in electrochemical systems across the board are increasing, that's undeniable. I'm not sure what the solution is. However, I expect Zn-air to be where battery power ultimately ends up. There are a lot of challenges for us to figure out with Zn-air, but they have the potential to perform amazingly.
Additionally, the inclusion of supercapacitors to solid state battery powered vehicles may assist in some of the slow charging problems. I know relatively little about them but from my understanding they use a lot of metals that are useful for electrochemical applications, so we'll have to see how economic it is.
Its a shame that FCVs don't really compare to EVs, but it is what it is. The infrastructure is too difficult to establish, and hydrogen production as of now isn't where it needs to be. Nevertheless, I think the most effective strategy to avoid running out of resources is to diversify the technology, but what will the logistical cost be?
That was sort of my thoughts when the FCV’s really started up. My thought was “great we finally decided to stop being stupid”. Then BEV’s picked up instead and I knew we were still incredibly stupid.
its probably these issues that are the problems of why we arent moving to solid state batteries, economy of scale thing i don't beleive is a actual issue here. If a company like tesla believed they work and you can give them a price once they order x ammount of batteries per year, they can just move to it themselves and create that so called economy of scale. Problem has to be other things that need to be solved first.
supercapacitor power density is abysmal, and they have extremely high self discharge. they are extremely inefficient in almost every possible way.
@@TMS5100 supercapacitors would most likely be used for frequently storing small amounts of energy, for example you might store energy generated by regenerative braking in the supercaps and then discharge them for use by the motor, so they should be emptied by the time you want to use them again
I think really we need to invest into nuclear for constant electrical energy generation then use hydrogen as a form of "battery storage" for intermittent energy users (eg vehicles). The electricity gained from nuclear would go into our homes and businesses. Then we use the electricity to split H1's from H2O and use the hydrogen as a semi-permanent storage for vehicles, which periodically turn on an off and aren't running all the time.
The issue I see is that the people with the money simply don't want to invest. It's going to have to come down to a "parallel economy" type situation or we're going to have to cater to them with prospect of earning even more money they they already have from existing procurement and storage methods. This mentality explains why Texas is more eco-friendly than California, which should be nonsense jibber jabber.
Folks, if you like peace of mind about your battery (longevity & safety), for years to come, just charge your EV between 30% - 70% (and do 90% - 100% when going for a long Road Trip).
(I own Tesla S & X, and I'm an Electrical Engineer)
* High temperatures kill batteries. If you go on a holiday/vacation during the summer, leave your vehicle at a low SOC (state of charge). For example, at or below 30% SOC
* Cycle within a narrow SOC range. For example: 40-60% rather than 10-80%. The cathode expands and contracts in a wider SOC range, which causes it to break apart.
* On that note: The lower the narrower the SOC range, the better. That means charging frequently.
* Avoid charging the vehicle above 75% SOC. Above 75% side reactions start occuring that cause degradation. This also reduces the volume expansion issues mentioned
* Taking all variables into account, operating between 45-70% SOC, and storage at ~30% is ideal.
* Occasional high SOC and wide SOC range are okay! For example, the occasional road trip.
* With good thermal management hardware and battery management software, supercharging should have minimal negative effects on cycle life
But even y'all will not follow those tips. The battery will not die tomorrow. it is just that there are some small (or big) consequences later on.
Have a great day
Thanks! I just wish these were software options in all consumer battery electronics. (But that wouldn't be very profitable)
@@ClearGalaxies
That's absolutely 100% correct!
Wow! I'm currently doing an internship at a car manufacturer in Germany and working on environmental responsibility, and the topics we are currently working on the most are alternatives to EVs i.e e-fuels and re-fuels as well as Life Cycle Assessment.
Great video! This is definitely a thoroughly investigated and researched video and shows the great complexity of solving the fossil fuel dependent economy problem.
I love your videos! Greetings from Germany!
Environmental responsibility sounds like something a bunch of tree hugging hippies made up to make us feel guilty for not being rich enough to afford expensive electric cars
@Noah Roth thanks! There are many different types of alternative fuels, for example power-to-gas or liquid-to-gas using hydrogen (especially green hydrogen produced using renewables) or biofuels produced by using food by-products such as corn or, as I recently heard, using wheat scraps!
It is really interesting and definitely a topic that has to get more mainstream attention especially from politicians (EU looks determined to kill the ICE even though it could use alternative fuels and reduce its emissions). As a environmentalist myself, it is definitely something impressing as you don't normally hear much from the electrification problems...
@@TKUA11 it's actually pretty helpful as we are trying to change the business approach from within... The car manufacturer has to change in order to help mitigate the climate impact of its business model
Fuel cells are too expensive because of all the precious metals required. Also green hydrogen as a fuel is extremely inefficient compared to a battery. Cars will run on batteries.
Not to be mean, but why doesn't it surprise me legacy automakers are working on alternatives to EVs when everyone knows no alternative is necessary (nor viable). My best bet would be the company is BMW since they're easily the worst in terms of sustainable vision, but I wouldn't put it any of the other Germany automakers tbh.
While I support Electric Vehicles on the whole, it is nice to see someone pointing out the very real issues of the batteries. Personally I see a non carbon road vehicle solution as a mix of traditional electric vehicles for personal and light use, and hydrogen fuel cells for long range bulk haulage use as traditional battery operated vehicles do not scale up so well when it comes to Heavy Goods Vehicles and the like.
Both technologies of course have their problems, not the least of which is infrastructure buildup as well as issues with the technologies involved. We need to understand these issues however and make informed choices, not simply choose one or the other, or disregard both because of those issues. Both will be needed, and as was so succinctly said, we do have to accept a certain amount of bad for the greater good.
Or we could just keep driving our great ICE cars...
not just batteries its a problem with mining in general
maybe when we get astroid mining we'll pollute earth less
Synthetic LPG Autogas basically Alkanes is way better than Hydrogen. It easier to ship transport and much more safer. It's already the 3rd most used light vehicle fuel.
"we do have to accept a certain amount of bad for the greater good."
I understand the sentiment, but people need to be hyper-aware of the fact that this kind of logic has justified so much evil in the past. "The Greater Good" is subjective and changes according to the whims of the masses and their fears.
Public transportation, bicycles, walking...
All of these pollute _far_ less than even the cleanest electric car and could replace most uses of cars in cities.
Without a shift towards public transport, and an order of magnitude or more reduction in private vehicle usage, it's not going to be anywhere near good enough to avert catastrophe. And that's assuming that it is in conjuction with massive decarbonization in non-transport sectors at the same time. Trams, trains, and trolley buses bypass the battery problem entirely.
Exactly. The automotive industry's lobbyists GUTTED public transport in America.
No, thanks. I'll keep my big yard, big house and big car. I live in a very car dependent city and I LOVE it.
@@Hjernespreng there is some nuance to it, the US is huge and impractical for public in many areas due to low population density. However I do agree with you in many areas (such as where I grew up, in the suburbs of Indiana)
@@davidturner4076 agreed.
Or... There's an alternative-- don't ban fossil fuels. We can also invest in synthetic fuels or hydrogen.
Very good segment, only thing missing here is the discussion of waste with the lack of recycling technology.
At 14:35 you mention that electric vehicles are responsible for 75% less emmisions compared to ICE vehicles even when factoring in production, usage, and scrapping. Would you be able to cite sources for that as I would love to read further on it!
Yes climate change is real but governments mandating the potential ban of ICE is not the way to go for solving this crisis. There has to be another way.
Good point. 75% sounds like a stretch
@@Mrcharles. I loved cars since before I can even remember and now I research transport policy. Unfortunately there is no other way as of now. Just way too many people on earth to be using such inefficient machines to get around.
@@lastminutesolutions perhaps if the government had invested in other modes of transportation like high speed rail 50 years ago we wouldn’t have this problem.
all of the sources are in the description hope this helps
From my understanding the biggest mineral shortage for EV batteries will be nickel. Lithium is an extremely abundant resource and can be found almost everywhere. Only small amounts of cobalt are used in most EV batteries and some new EV batteries are cobalt free. Nickel though is much less abundant and makes up a pretty large proportion of long range EV batteries. Lower range EV's can use iron phosphate.
If memory serves, many asteroids are plentiful in nickel for some reason, so that may be a good source if we can get to the point that we can get to it.
Or even Sodium-ion batteries.
the majority of the world's cobalt is used in refining diesel fuel. So switching to ev's will actually reduce demand for cobalt
Yeah i think tesla is actually using lithium iron phosphate for shorter range model 3s
Yes, and Tesla’s new 4680 batteries contain no cobalt. The volume and scale of these new batteries will truly be staggering.
Honestly we need to, as societies, be looking at how many cars can we replace with public transport rather than with new cars. So many small towns are unwalkable if you're not at peak fitness or you're ill or disabled, even a bus going back and forth through town a few times a day would make a huge difference to so many lives. When bus services get added, they tend to get used
the problem is that even in a small town with a decent public transport.. most people still have decided that they need to own a car. for when they need to extend beyond that zone, or they want to go somewhere that public transport doesn't reach etc. and once you have the vehicle, the only incentive not to drive is environmentalism.. and to many that's just not worth the cost of convenience.
in the US anyways.
i'm a big car person. i love and prefer personal transport to public. i hate cities and pretty much hate people and being around them. nothing makes me angrier than having to sit near them or breathe their air or listen to their conversations etc. it will not sway me towards public transportation.
what would be effective to me however is a small light and efficient electric vehicle. something with a small carbon footprint and smaller capability. however i would still need to own a larger vehicle for everything else i need to do. and the economics of multiple vehicles is not compelling enough. so this would need to be something that did not cost a lot to insure, or register, or tax and so forth. it would need to make economic sense to me.
so it's either electric full size cars and trucks. or a second electric vehicle for the 80% of my life that i spend driving around town and dont need much cargo capacity or range.
plus i live in the deep south, where its unbearably hot and humid 90% of the year, and colder than we normally are prepared for the other 10%. cycling is a non starter. i cant take my kid to school, i cant get groceries in it. i could go to work on a bike but am unwilling to arrive at work sweaty and tired.
This is all good for dense cities. It would be unworkable for most place in the world. You can't sustain a bus service when you'd have just a few passengers per hour
yeah electric cars are as space ineficient as normal cars.
trains from trams to bullet trains along metro and light trains are the answer, they don't get stuck on traffic like buses or trams, they can carry a lot of people on a direct route(they can also diseabled and bicycle friendly), also they can be all electric without bateries.
trams for small towns, metro for big cities, bullet train across cities far away; buses are better than nothing(mainly for suburbs and the edges of the cities), i think on cities over 1 million people must have a least 3 metro lines; Tokyo(13 lines), London(11 lines) and CDMX(12 lines) are good example of good public transit whit some level of walkability and cycling.
@@neverknowsbest4994 I am sick and tired of people making the “what about the countryside” argument. What about them? Just because a country is not car dependent doesn’t mean that you can’t drive cars in the countryside. Just look at how a lot of European country does it, they also have countrysides and dense citys, people drive cars when traveling in the countryside and used public transportation when in the cities. And in fact it’s usually even better to drive in these countries because the roads are better maintained since there’s less of them. I don’t get why it’s so hard to understand.
@John E This! And a lot of the work and ways of living sorta dictate such. Public transportation isn't any good if "afterhours" is a thing....
And crap tier connections where the closest drop off is 2 miles from the destination, and even then what's a 15 minute trip by car is 1-2 hours by bus on a clear day.
The amount of overhaul needed to make public trasport even remotely enticing is mind boggling depending on locales.
The Hello Fresh ad at the end is truly ironic
As many have said in the comments, for most people cars are an extremely inefficient means of transport - regardless of their energy source.
A move towards public transport and smaller electronic power personal transport (ebikes etc.) seems to be an actual green step forwards.
Even the current system of traffic lights could be optimized - think about how much energy is wasted among all the cars when 3 lanes of traffic need to come to stop to allow one car to make a turn.
Too many people view the world through the lense of a city. Public transportation is horrifically ineffective on an individual level when you dont live in a city and when theres no biking infrastructure like Amsterdam you can't really bike.
ua-cam.com/video/0PIND0YO3KU/v-deo.html
@@mayonnaiseluther1568 Most people live in cities. There will always be people out in the country but people in cities shouldn't have to drive.
And yes a lot of cities don't have good infrastructure like Amsterdam. That's the point. We need to build it.
Goodluck in the next pandemic LOLOLOL
@@mayonnaiseluther1568 the Los Angeles metro, a horribly low density area, had a robust public transportation system before the invention of the car
Sounds so obvious but I'm glad this video focuses a little on the lithium being mined. Itrs crazy how many people don't realise that batteries, as good as they are, still require mining non-renewables.
its non-renewable thanks to the lack of recycling as battery can be recycled to recuperate 80% to 95%+ of its raw materials. Its insane why there is a huge reliance mining while very few are working to recycle.
Tell this the green-EU-lunatics. They completely out of touch with reality.
…and that those batteries don’t last forever and are “non-renewable.” Trade some air quality in densely populated areas for massive holes in the Earth robbing it’s precious metals, then poising it with dying batteries years later? Nothing Green about it.
Well, then they are just as uninformed as people saying that EVs are worse for the environment than ICEs.
It is extremely obvious that due to limitations imposed by basic science and reality, non-renewable minerals and metals will need to be mined, often in questionable conditions, and used for the green transition. Solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, everything uses these minerals in one way or another. It's unavoidable. Those materials will need to come from somewhere and often countries that have a lot of them are controlled by scumbags.
BUT, it is still better than doing nothing and staying our current course. We just need to tolerate it for now while looking for and perfecting better solutions at the same time, i.e. natrium ion batteries. The question now is just like what the video asks in the end: how much bad should be allowed for the greater good?
@@gerhardaryawardana72 From what I read from people that have EV' s is not enough range,not enough power and they lose their charge too quickly operating in mountains and deserts,basically most of the same problems that existed with EV' s in the early 20th Century, EV's, imo are just not ready for prime time yet,ok for around town,but that's about it,this is not the kind of car you would be able to take the family on vacation in to the Grand Canyon, then there is the problem of recharging,it takes too long,not like a gasoline powered car that in 5 min you are refueled and back on the road,an EV takes from 6 to 8 hrs to get a complete charge,may as well get a motel room and wait it out,and if you charge at home,watch your power bill go sky high,the money you save on gasoline, that and much more may be spent on electricity and I don't want my tax money spent on installing charging stations, tax money wasn't used to install gasoline pumps,the oil companies or the people who owned the gas station did that themselves,let the EV industry do that themselves,and if everyone went to EV' s where is all of the electricity we will need come from? Electricity doesn't appear by magic,if we can't use nuclear, coal,hydro, natural gas or fuel oil, how will electricity be generated,wind and solar are not reliable,remember Texas when all of that froze up in the winter,imo,I just don't think it is ready for prime time yet,this hasn't been completely thought through,maybe in 50yrs,it seems like the people who want this,while they may be grown people chronologically, they think like a immature 5 year old.I am already 70 yrs old,so unless I live another 50 yrs,I don't think I will see this in my life time.
I think this video shows the one thing missing from any discussion on EVs and environmentalism is that every choice you make has a cost no matter the benefit. Things have to be looked at a nuanced way and we shouldn't sugar coat any topic with platitudes.
If there was any interest in making cars green, they would have focused on converting existing cars to run on hydrogen fuel.
@@kavky hydrogen is made from fossil fuels (at scale) - why would you convert a fossil fuel car to use another fossil fuel? The tiny amount of Hydrogen made from clean electricity takes 3x as much electricity per mile than an EV does, and costs 10x as much at retail as just plugging in at home.
@@brushlessmotoring Burning hydrogen produces only water.
@@kavky manufacturing hydrogen emits CO2 - hydrogen doesn’t exist by itself in large quantities, it exists as part of other things, mainly water, but also hydrocarbons. In order to produce pure hydrogen for a fuel cell you need to separate it, the most common (by far) and economical method is steam reforming methane, which emits CO2. Combusting hydrogen in an engine with air will still produce NOx emissions as well as water, and not a lot of power - it will make your 5 liter engine feel like 1 - if the conversion is even possible - it’s also proven very unreliable due to embrittlement. The only clean way to produce hydrogen, without CO2 emission is using electricity and electrolysis of water - but this - combined with a fuel cell to turn the hydrogen back into electricity takes 3x more energy per mile than just charging an EV does - at retail, green hydrogen is 10x more expensive per mile than domestic electricity in an EV. Hydrogen doesn’t make sense for transportation. It’s too low in energy density, too difficult to handle and too expensive to manufacture. EVs win on every metric, including environmental emissions.
@WhatsApp Unfortunately this concept is complete BS and has been debunked several times within the last years.
My biggest problem with EVs is and always will be the cost of the vehicle. A decent EV costs about $50k, which for someone who only makes $27k a year, creates a huge problem with affordability. While there will probably be more tax credits and such, that monthly payment is far too great to overcome for someone whose take home pay is less than $2000 a month.
This "savior" is just going to expose the ever-widening gap between those of us who don't have and those who have, and all the smugness that is going to follow because I absolutely refuse to buy a 50 thousand dollar smartphone that will need to be replaced after 5-6 years with another 50 thousand dollar device that I CANNOT afford. But my 12-year old Honda, still works great, doesn't cost that much to run, and will be dead reliable for another 5-10 years if I maintain it properly.
Sorry for being so poor, but this isn't worth how much more damage is going to be done to OUR ONLY HOME IN THE UNIVERSE BTW, so that Li and Co and Ni shareholders can get richer while the po' folks who have to mine it suffer more and more, and who also can't afford to buy the cars that their excruciating work is helping to build.
They only cost this much because EV's arent as mass produced as combustion vehicles, in the future they will actually be cheaper to construct than combustion engines. as Graphene battery packs will cost a lot less than entire engine and transmission systems, with graphene being an extremely cheap material.
You don't care about the toxic chemicals, human slavery and environmental destruction that comes with EVs? They are significantly more harmful to the environment than ICEs and most of the EV can't be recycled. The battery just gets buried and a lot of the plastic isn't recyclable. EVs are a stupid dream.
@@ZingNovaVODS the cost isn't the problem it's the thought that evs will somehow save the earth, they won't.
@@ZingNovaVODS Thats bullshit, ICE's are bone simple to make despite their "high number of moving parts" because EV motors need special metallurgy with tight hysterisis curves, wheras pistons, rods, and cranks need only be drop forged and ground. Tesla is as mass produced as any other car, economies of scale wont fix this problem my guy. The reality is this, ICE's are coming that are just as efficient as the turbines used to power the grid itself, and it will be cheaper to drive an ICE car than an EV, and indeed cheaper to run a generator than buy from the grid. The EV is a scam, full stop.
@@ZingNovaVODS given how vehicles are mass produced, the drivetrain is bolted onto a body, ev mass production isn't an issue. plot out a vaguely ICE shaped EV drivetrain and drop existing bodies on top of it as they already do.
battery tech is the biggest issue, and lunatics like Musk who insist on making EV supercars instead of doing actual engineering which is to say making it work 5% better than the bare minimum. you don't need a 400V awd system than can do 3 second 0-60mph. just build it fwd, with performance to achieve 0-60 in a normal 8-12ish range fit it with software limiters that only let drivers access about 60% of it's potential with more power granted if towing or on an increasing incline.
the world isn't ready for EV because battery tech isn't ready for the road. current model ev's are paperweights once their limited life batteries are failing. ICE cars aren't fairing any better the lease market has made them subject to engineered obsolescence as well. once that 4 year lease is up the dual clutch system fails and now the car is a brick requiring you to spend 75% of it's current value replacing a clutch that all but requires the car to be unmanufactured to reach it's home. EV's are the future, but they need a form of rapid energy storage i don't believe exists yet to actually be viable. the current generation will be seen as a monumental farce to future generations
There is an option not mentioned in this video: lithium-battery recycling. During my masters me and a group of other students designed a battery recycling plant based on a German patent. We found that Lithium, Cobalt, Manganese, Nickel as well as Graphite can be extracted from used batteries with a very high purity and a pretty good return on investement for a plant in Germany. Just shortly after we found out that some companies started building more of these recycling plants. The good thing is that with increasing EV demand those kind of recycling plants become more profitable and I hope more large businesses and governments start to aid this development.
its a good idea, but wouldnt be nearly enough, we need to figure out battery technology using something else, such as sodium or aluminum batteries instead of sticking to lithium because its already shown lithium production is just no good for our planet at the levels required for "worldwide" electric vehicles.
The return on investment vs cost of extraction is going to be the problem. Unfortunately a lot of the battery packs are not ideally built for recycle.
Both Volkswagen and Renault have EV battery recycling plants. Others also exist, and are operational...
Why were LFP batteries not mentioned. They are frequently used in buses and standard range model 3s. Although sightly less energy dense, they contain no nickel or cobalt. They also last longer, are safer and are here now.
because this was an anti EV hit piece? No mention of any context around other methods of transportation propulsion, just lots of scary 'look! bad things!' around batteries used in EVs (but not batteries used in other devices for the last 20 years - which, even now, are the far greater users of Lithium, Cobalt and Nickel)
@@brushlessmotoring Not a hit piece. He says the quantities needed are about to go vertical and explains the trade offs. It was balanced.
@@KayAteChef not without talking about the impacts of our current solution - Oil - without context about why we need to make the change, it's just a vague anti-change piece. Nothing is perfect, and we need to act now - the transition to EVs is already going to take too long, trying to wait another decade with vague promises about solid state batteries is harmful.
@@brushlessmotoring The impression that I got was that we had to shift volume now to achieve economy of scale. No delays.
@@KayAteChef I have not seen solid state at scale - if it were possible, there would be crazy thin phones and smart watches with it in already - maybe premium price points - but for certain applications, there is a market for the benefits they tout - so where are the products? Dyson hung his hat on having solid state in his new EV - he had to first change that position when it was clearly not possible - then abandoned the whole project. Where is the luxury super thin fast charging Apple Watch ‘Rich Dude Edition’ with a solid state battery in it? They made a gold for 10 grand, don’t you thing they would have offered something similar by now? And if they can make it at low volume tiny cell luxury watch volume, how are they going to scale it to a car? It took 49 years for lithium ion to go from lab, to military use, to expensive consumer electrics to expensive small battery vehicles to eventually mid priced electric vehicles and probably another 5 to 10 to get to affordable electric vehicles. Solid state is still in the lab. Tell me what product you can but with a solid state battery in it and I’ll change my mind.
I was expecting the video to mention Lithium Ion battery recycling enterprises, such as Li-Cycle and Redwood. Battery recyclers will play a crucial role in alleviating the battery supply chain.
The manufacturers haven't designed the batteries for recyclability, and no one's commercialized the recycling process, yet. It's very difficult and expensive. If there's to be any semblance of "green" to this technology, then they need to prioritize recycling. This is *far* more important than most other forms of recycling, where there isn't a market for the materials, and most is just thrown away, instead--especially since China started refusing our recyclables for recycling.
@@RetroDawn it's coming. Most lithium used to be in laptop and cellphone batteries. It's only now that's it's in car batteries. Huge packs are easier to recycle.
Cars as a waste product are very recycled. The plastics. The steel. The copper. Just about all the bits get used.
Currently it's tens of thousands of batteries hitting the wreck lots per year. Not enough to sustain an industry. Give it 5 years-7 years. Tesla made 1 million this year. In 7 years that's a lot of batteries to recycle n
Today we are recycling the batteries from their first few years. They were only making tens of thousands of cars then.
@@pierredelecto7069 We're not recycling any post-consumer EV batteries yet. Unfortunately, none of the EV manufacturers, including Tesla, are designing their batteries to be replaced, let alone recycled. They want people to just buy a new one. Ironcially, Tesla's ex-CTO and cofounder is the co-founder of Redwood, the only company recycling EV batteries--but that's 100% pre-consumer (manufacturing defects), and they are using a hybrid pyro/hydro solution that burns away much of the lithium and other materials.
However, we need to use these batteries for as long as possible before recycling. I doubt there are any businesses that are purchasing used EV batteries for reuse currently, though. They could be useful for non-mobile usages, such as the grid. But, they'll never do that--at least not in the US.
@@RetroDawn I don't think there's many EV batteries even available yet. Even as scrap commodity the demand is high. People will search out crashed Teslas to re use the battery. Not recycle it.
I was thinking that as millions of battery operated cars are retired each year, which will happen eventually, that at that point there will be enough supply to encourage an industry.
First step to having a lithium recycling industry is having a huge source of lithium that needs recycling. I'm no engineer. Just a car guy.
@@RetroDawn Tesla actually has a recycling program of their own (as do every self respecting battery manufacturer ) but it’s quite small since not very many evs are of the road yet. But a good few thousand tons are recycled per year. It’s in their impact report.
9:43 "but to decarbonize driving, solutions must be found". they have been found, and they have existed for hundreds of years. it's called public transit, biking, and walking
In The Netherlands the goal is not necessarily to replace Electric cars from ICE, but also to drastically reduce the number of cars completely. This will skew the actual amount of lithium needed and the amount of cars to replace. This is the real target and it is 100% realistic to see half the amount of cars on the road within a decade due to a great plan to build out a massive public transport system and to invest in that with a long term plan.
Maybe it'll work when your population density is 100x ours lol
Good luck with that in Central Europe. I was travelling by bus in Hungary last summer and the journey took 3 times as much as by car. Also I just saw in the news that in Slovakia where I live they had to cancel multiple trains and busses because of the lack of drivers.
No wonder why much of the hate against EV's I see comes from the US where we *still* have few plans to offer much in the way of public transit, even within cities
The electric buses and electric bicycles will also increase lithium demand
@@cpufreak101 Americans arent anti EV. Charging is the problem. F-150 sells like hotcakes, so price isnt an issue for all. when your car takes 150kw, but its charging at half due to temps or charger issue??? I see PHEVs succeed in U.S. no need to build chargers and modify your electrical system at home as most PHEVs draw 16amps. Upgrading to 200 amps can cost up to 20K if lines are underground.
Im all for more electric vehicles, but outright banning internal combustion ones when we arent even close to ready for that is impressively stupid
username checks out
They were not banned, people are still allowed to drive around with them. It was banned to sell any new combustion car made after 2030. Until the last combustion cars leave those countries it is going to take up until 2050, because people there on average drive their car for 18 years.
@@fatalityin1 still seems dumb since it kinda seems like its reducing the potential of improvements in internal combustion engine tech. Seems best to set high MPG standards. That might have the positive effect of making cars smaller/weigh less. Idk.. I'm no expert.
@@adventurefaps9571 it's not dumb cause by directly banning ICE you're forcing manufacturers to divert their R&D money towards developing better batteries and EVs, which are unquestionably better for the environment than ICE ever will be. It's either allow them to keep producing ICE and get at best 20% cleaner vehicles or force them to produce 70% and upwards cleaner vehicles.
@@fedyx1544 Except the electricity they need is still produced by polluting the environment
I was hoping for a mention of LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries. These contain zero cobalt, and so eliminate the most problematic mineral. The standard edition of Tesla’s Model 3 use this type of battery.
But that would ruin the EV hit-piece narrative - funny how everyone is _suddenly_ wringing their hands over batteries now they are in vehicles - they never had a problem with phones and laptops, and no mention of cobalt usage in gasoline refining, or lithium in medicine.
This is an Oil and Gas funded narrative to delay EV takeup and make sure we continue to burn fossil fuels and pollution the atmosphere, this video, and it's plastic wrapping sponsor, are not interesting in climate change.
Phosphate is the single biggest limit to life on earth. Shifting from cobalt to phosphate would put even more strain on global food production. It's also not green to mine and most deposits contain a decent amount of radioactive products. There are huge superfund sites all over Florida from phosphate mine tailings.
They have a lower energy density, but are superior in just about every other way.
@@brushlessmotoring Cars use a LOT more lithium than any phone or laptop. Like, a LOT more. Multiply that by the sheer number of cars in the US, let alone the world and you have an exponential increase in lithium demand over phones, laptops etc. The science is there. We will be creating a new problem while we solve our current one. This is why I can't stand the "EV's are awesome" narrative. EV's are nice, they have upsides and help solve a current problem but god damn, people are blind to the new problems we are going to create/make much worse.
Probably because the problem of lithium still exists.
It’s a step in the right direction but making it sound like it’s the ultimate solution is still not good. Lithium mining especially in less developed locations is notoriously poor for the environment. And expanding the mines will simply make the problem worse.
Sam was showing the problem with lithium ion batteries and lithium production.
Solid state batteries were brought up because with time they are a viable solution. LFPs aren’t.
I love how the nearest Starbucks is a measure of sparseness.
I'd say being three hours from a Starbuck's is a feature, not a bug!
I adore that conclusion. One of your best videos because of it.
Running the theme of the video throughout and then relating it to new and current issues hit the point extra home. Goosebumps.
Scientific predictions about weather have historically been as wrong as religious predictions about the end times. The science is wrong. Co2 levels used to be higher than now in dinosaur times and life flourished because Co2 is plant food. Banning gas cars is tyranny.
@@eromod You seem to ignore a lot. The carbon dioxide levels were higher before, true.
The issue is everything else, the context. Going from our levels of green house gas to way higher levels heats the planet. This makes climates change. A change in climates gives a change in circumstances for everything living.
Real life example of context: if a dry area, say a place in the southwest of Asia, would get less rain as an effect of warmer air being able to absorb more water vapour (fewer clouds are formed).
Less rain would make it hard for the plants to survive. This leads to what is called a drought. A decrease in available water which noticeably affects the life of the area.
Droughts happen from time to time, but with a higher temperature it will happen way more.
If fewer plants survive that means less food for whatever eats the plants, e.g. humans.
Humans live in societies. They often want to stay in their society rather than move to another society. People have a sense of belonging to their home, both the location and its culture. In order for the society to be stable it tries to plan for bad things happening to its people. With a prolonged drought the government needs to find food for its people in other ways. If the people starves the government has to act quickly or a revolution is likely to happen. Hungry people are not planning for the long haul, it's do or die. A semi spontaneous revolution is bound to happen.
A lot of different groups tries to take charge, since the straw that broke the camel's back wasn't a political one. The revolution was not politically driven.
Civil war ensues. Syria is in shambles. Massive emigration, international aide that's military, monetary and humanitary.
The change from one amount of green house gase to another lead to the war in Syria. Context matters.
It isn't the absolute amount, it is the relative change.
We've had ice ages, we've had warm periods. They came and went slowly. Now we have a rapid change. The context can't keep up with the change. Evolution of species take time so animals and plants have no chance to adapt. Humans have a chance, but capitalism and nationalism is impeding.
Sea levels have risen and some people can't "go back to where they came from" because their home is playing with Atlantis, hiding under the ocean.
@@JaharNarishma Sea levels have risen? Just look up old picture of the statue of liberty compared to new pictures of the statue of liberty., The water level is the same!
Plus, NASA said that in 2014, the north pole had the most ice ever recorded!
All these climate "scientists" cant get their facts straight. First they said it was getting too hot, then they said it was getting too cold. Now they just call it "climate change" to say that the extreme temperature differences change.
But if you look throughout history when life thrived, the temperature fluctuations are perfectly normal!
CO2 is plant food and gas is a much better energy storage solution than current battery technology.
@@JaharNarishma Even if the sea levels did rise, its still moral to keep using oil because its such a superior energy storage solution.
Yall could just move to Antartica because it would warm up enough to even farm and import from Canada for extra help.
@@eromodunfortunately, it's not as simple as 'move to somewhere that's cold right now but will be warmer as climate changes.' there is what's commonly called 'tipping points' in climatology, where once you pass certain threshold, the climate system either settles into a new state or into runaway instability due to positive feedback loop.
1. Conversion of ice sheets into water increases the albedo (roughly speaking, how much light/heat a surface absorbs; e.g. white surfaces absorb less light, dark surfaces absorb more light), which further drives temperature increase due to increased heat absorption.
2. Currently, the ocean is absorbing a lot of CO2 from the air, as evidenced by ecological consequences of ocean acidification reported around the world. However, gas solubility in liquid solvent decreases when temperature increases, meaning at some point, the ocean will start to release a huge amount of dissolved CO2 and currently stable methane deposits on the sea floor, exacerbating the greenhouse effect.
3. As average global temperature increases, rate of ocean evaporation also increases, and vapor is in itself a greenhouse gas, and so it will accelerate the temperature increase.
While individual tipping point events may not in themselves be catastrophic (e.g. the loss of the entire antarctic ice sheet will add ~0.6C to global temperature), these tipping point events can form a cascading chain, and we don't know for sure when the cascade would end. For example we could end up like venus, where the greenhouse effect is so strong that the average surface temperature is over 400C/800F, which would make human survival impossible.
Don't you think the actual solution is turning away from a car dependent transportation system instead of relying on slightly better bateries? I expected you would touch on that subject, but it seemed to me it wasn't even considered.
But... That's not what the video was about, so why would he?
@@brettvv7475 The video is about the problems with Lithium-ion batteries and solutions to them. One of the most effective solutions is to reduce overall dependency on (electric) cars, so that definitely fits in the discussion.
What i understand you to be saying is something akin to "switch to public transportation instead"
And if that is the gist of what you mean, then i can say that'd most likely never work. From personal experince i'd fight tooth and nail to keep my ability to go where i want, whenever i want.
And contiuning that line, even if one were to then make the arguement of taxi like cabs that'd come and get you. Well then that is so close to owning a car anyway so why bother?
If i misundestod what you meant then please expand upon your idea :D
Sounds great if you live in a city.
No one is going to create public transit to a ranch house 50 miles from city center.
That is typical for the average car-brain American. It's not their fault for growing up in car centric America, but a good look into large European and Asian cities would certainly change their perception that cars are just a terrible concept in terms of space and resources efficiency, but time as well.
I love this realization: If we have very cheap energy, everything becomes cheap.
With cheap energy you can pump lots of seawater and filter it if needed, you can extract elements from their ores through electrolysis or many energy intensive processes, you have heat, light, cold, power for movement, power for hydroponic crops, which lets you create high quality food without the land, you can create fuels with CO2 and water... Everything becomes cheap and abundant.
This is why I think fusion power is our road to post scarcity.
I think to date Volvo is the only car manufacturer to have valid data to show the actual affects of producing an ev version model of an ide identical model of its combustion counterpart on the same production line. And I think the studies may come to a great shock as to how much we still have to go in EV cars to even consider them viable comparison in purely just the production of them being "greener" then the combustion versions.
I wonder what will happen when the “brainwashed” start driving these things for awhile and wake up to the reality that they can’t compete with a real car. All the sudden the market is flooded with used Ev’s no one will buy…
WHO IN THE HECK IS GOING TO BUY A 5 TON TOYOTA?
I don't know what you said but I agree
I dont agree with banning combustion engines but there should be more convenient options for public transit/work from home. This would make the lithium crunch more feasible. Also reduce gas prices as demand would shrink if we could cut daily drivers in half.
personnaly i hate the idea of banning IC engine when we dont have releable replacement. There is replacement fuel like porsche did. There is nitrogene IC engine. There is WAAAYYY more than CO2 in pollution but we only talk about CO2... CO2 can be treat with planting tree... landfill cant just disappear and most ressources arnt infinite ressources. We will run out of rare material like lithium pretty quick.
@@1nicube Banning the sale of new ones, you'll still be able to drive your ic engine and buy 2nd hand cars
@@scottg3192 i know?
Also, focusing on makin IC engines less polluting, or maybe stop polluting at all...
@@janhammekenbuch142 i am not saying to keep only 1.. im saying that electric car isnt our way out.
Just keep those technology soo compagny continu to improve them and also make new type of vehicule like hydrogene or maybe other engine we didnt discover yet.
Your figure of 31.5 million cars is wrong I think. They are proposing to ban NEW car sales by 2030, not replace all the cars in one go. There was 2.3 million new cars registered in the UK in 2019 for example.
Yes I noticed that too
ICE vehicles still have a long way to go
Don't forget he has the whole program for correcting errors to get a trip to Australia.
@@chrisraines1564 lol I think that’s Economics Explained not Wendover
that's only one of many factual inaccuracies that make this entire analysis comically off base. when you start from a set of "facts" that aren't true its hard to make up for that.
@@johnkeefer8760 you know I thought this was economics explained 😂
Seeing a Wendover video relating to solid-state batteries (the area of research I did my masters in) is surreal
I’m hoping to get further qualifications at some point and work as a researcher for an institution focusing on solid-state battery research, so it’s awesome seeing the topic discussed
It was such a well made video
@@DyslexicMitochondria hey bro i watch your videos. Big fan of your channel
@@DyslexicMitochondria some comments pointed out there need to have more clarification on solid state part. Other than that , pretty informative video.
sounds like Wendover was a bit misinformed / not fully aware of the solid state battery topic and tradeoffs though 🤷♂️
Curious, did you review how PCB's are made for the electronics and how many times those parts are shipped back and forth across the world before being final assembled and in the end use device??
Suprised you didn't mention the recyclability of these batteries as personally I think it's another big issue that could also significantly redeuce the enviromental inpact of EVs. Most batteries at the moment aren't recyclable and therefore as EVs are in early stages of development many aren't sold as second hand cars as newer ones are avaliable with doube the range etc. This is where the combustion market still dominates over EVs as second hand ICE cars are much cheaper and don't offer a significant disadvantage over new ones.
Like you said, they haven't designed the batteries for recyclability, and no one's really commercialized the recycling process, yet. It's very difficult and expensive. If there's to be any semblance of "green" to this technology, then they need to prioritize recycling. This is *far* more important than most other forms of recycling, where there isn't a market for the materials, and most is just thrown away, instead--especially since China started refusing our recyclables for recycling.
Batteries can also be repurposed later in life, even when they've lost enough capacity to no longer be helpful for EVs. EVs are the most energy intensive usage, but there are plenty more. We honestly shouldn't even need to get to the recycling stage until they've been reused for a long time. Even now, there's a market for this -- batteries have a lot of uses.
@@d_dave7200 This has been my opinion, as well. We need to use these batteries for as long as possible before recycling. Are there industries that are purchasing used EV batteries currently, though?
You know that Tesla is recycling 100% of their batteries....btw Tesla is also building their own lithium mine....btw Tesla is with the boring company and robot taxi invested in public transport....why is that left out?
Tesla says, “None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfills and 100% are recycled. Every Tesla battery factory will recycle batteries on-site. As the manufacturer of our in-house cell program, we are best positioned to recycle our products efficiently to maximize key battery material recovery.”
There was a guy who used to work for Tesla and did start up a company for recycling batteries as well. But regardless that is a strong issue to EVs. I do enjoy the instant torque on my electric bike though lol.
The last 30 seconds of narration was beautifully written. Well done
AND COMPLETELY FULL OF UNMITIGATED LIES.
"is it worth to allow individuals to own guns" - that part? That mentality is absurdly inverted. Let me ask you: is it worth to allow you to own any capital? capital can be used for nefarious purposes. Let's keep you poor, it's safer. Let's keep you unarmed, it's safer.
@@piousboxI didn’t see anything about guns.
Finally! Been waiting long for someone to talk about this
Check out Undecided with Matt Ferrell, he does stuff like this all the time
I wonder which company will rise from the production.
We are also apparently going through a battery revolution so maybe a solution can be found.
Excellent reporting, excellent presentation. I am going to cite this in my research essay on electric vehicles. Thanks folks!
Write about the genocide the global warming scam is causing instead. Write about the child slave labor used in mining minerals for the batteries too.
Did you get to address how are the batteries disposed of once they finish their life cycle? Because this video didn't cover that.
the video overall is good but i'ts missing a few points:
1) cobalt is being phased out of evs, basically everywhere
2) who is the largest consumer of cobalt? the oil industry to refine oil to be used in ice vehicles
3) missing the elphant in the room that is the new Tesla dry extraction method of mining and refining lithium
4) battery recycling will be a thing, there are already tens of companies with big funding behind them ( redwood material for example)
this are just the first that comes to my mind
The manufacturers, including Tesla, of course, haven't designed their batteries for recyclability and replaceability--they want you to buy a new one. And no one's commercialized the post-consumer recycling process, yet. It's very difficult and expensive. If there's to be any semblance of "green" to this technology, then they need to prioritize recycling. This is *far* more important than most other forms of recycling, where there isn't a market for the materials, and most is just thrown away, instead--especially since China started refusing our recyclables for recycling.
Ironcially, Tesla's ex-CTO and cofounder is the founder of Redwood, the only company recycling EV batteries--but that's 100% pre-consumer (manufacturing defects), and they are using a hybrid pyro/hydro solution that burns away much of the lithium and other materials.
However, we need to use these batteries for as long as possible before recycling. I doubt there are any businesses that are purchasing used EV batteries for reuse currently, though. They could be useful for non-mobile usages, such as the grid. But, they'll never do that--at least not in the US.
Yes and also Australia alone has about 100 years worth of lithium supply at current rate, also in a method that is comparatively environmentally friendly to mine. It just costs more.
@@samuel999 source?
the problem with lithium ion batteries is that they're too big to swallow whole
Just get a bigger hole
@@potatojake197 you would know
depends if its cylindrical or prismatic
@@6z0 as a matter of fact you're right
I've seen women swallowing bigger "things", some of them with batteries inside.
Hey all, Financial Analyst for the energy production industry here - this is a cool video, its true that more lithium = more water use. For future prospects check out Fe Ion batteries though. It's about 8x more profitable than lithium (which is insane!) So that's probably where the industry will go.
Edit: profitability of Iron ion batteries is a large driver for change, but speed of production, social pressures, and energy density all err in favor of Iron as well
Big if true
LiFePo4 (LFP) technology has it's place but it is larger and heavier for the same amount of energy delivered so it will only ever work in a class where those properties fit the engineering solution.
The matter: electric transportation is a subject I find really interesting. It all started with;
if everybody have an electric car, What does it mean to recharge?
Questions linked to this;
- Duration when a car is fully charge?
- Distance to travel with a fully charged car.
- International transport.
- Mail (international)
- Replacement of batteries in ev's.
- Gas stations
- recharge stations?
- From where comes the electricity to recharge stations?
Personally I think that especially the European union, severely underestimate their goal;
In the year 2035, only ev's are allowed.
If the questions above aren't thoroughly studied, I foresee enormous problems.
Resulting in a crisis unheard of. In this case, forcefully created by a union of nations.
We should take a step back and ask: why does everybody need an electric car?
Is there a from of transportation that can reduce our need for cars; like the EU's already mature transit system?
@@bellairefondren7389
From time to time, this is mentioned and often returns. An issue is that companies, jobs and schools don't begin and end at the same time. Then there is the number of people that works, go to a school. One company consists of ten employee, while other companies have hundred if not more.
With schools, it's the same.
Another option is that companies and schools bring and take their students and employees. I think that the problem stays.
Transport in general will stay an issue.
Including what would be used; Electricity, gasoline, gas, water, etc.
No matter what product, it will always have a negative impact on nature.
Personally, with electricity, it's even more devastating; the amount of water that is needed and the pollution of that water after being used. That water cannot be used anymore. I couldn't take out this docu if that water could be filtered. But lately, water is starting to get scarce. Imagine what will happen after 5 years. When electricity is obligated. The destruction of nature will be far worse. Now everything is more expensive, it will be more expensive when that day comes. More corruption, the gap between rich and poor won't be a gap. 2 worlds. Jealousy will be the norm.
Still, I do think that it's wise to think about alternatives, but it is a very bad thing to see an alternative as the ultimate solution.
History already have showed and proven it several times.
Maybe the "End Goal" is really fewer cars, less food production, and fewer 'useless eaters'.
@@leftrevolution7 So no where did I say transit is the "ultimate" solution. Not entirely sure what that would entail. I also don't think the complaint you brought up about start and end times being different is that big of a hurdle. You can run frequent transit throughout the day.
If we want to reduce our overall energy footprint, creating walkable communities and expanding transit will need to be a major focus to of our infrastructure planning.
not really. your logic only works if cars were the only form of transportation known to exist. they arent. there is something called a train. there's also something called a bus. a bike. and legs, for walking
CATL proposed usable sodium-ion batteries, which I find very interesting. Sodium is quite abondend, cheap and easily mined. If they work as promised and maybe get better with future generations, they could be a solution as well
Coal has proved itself time and time again.
@@vivigesso3756 except the part where we kill our planet
@@vivigesso3756 I'm not sure if steam engines in cars is the way to go. But hey, maybe there's a green miracle waiting in that 1700s tech.
@@Skasaha_ Steam cars work remarkably well, if it wasn't for the whole waiting 15 minutes for your car to warm up every time you need it thing. Need groceries? 15 minutes, need to take the groceries home? 15 minutes... Other than that steam actually drives cars pretty well. Would be easy to run them on diesel or natural gas too.
Unfortunately, sodium has way more safety issues than lithium. It ignites easier, and the chemistry is decades behind lithium :/
The cobalt can be replaced with iron phosphate, a much less problematic substance in terms of humanitarian costs. Unfortunately this results in a heavier battery for the same capacity, but it has the added benefit of lower flammability.
When looking at the modal share around the world (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share), it becomes clear that the almost absolute car dependency of citizens in the US is also *unique* to the US.
Therefore, what is really needed, is to fix zoning issues (=allow mixed development), and to build cycling and public transit infrastructure.
Jesus Christ in almost all North American cities 90% move around in cars. That's insane
Bi coastal population, spread over a continent with vast plains in the middle. *That* is what’s unique about the US (and Canada), and the transportation and residence situation flows from all that.
@@Nill757 that makes sense for the mid west and rockys. But on the east coast, south and around the Great lakes you have about 2/3 of the population and with a fairly good pop density. Sure, Las Vegas and Salt Lake city probably rely more on highways to function, but there is no excuse when cities like Miami, Atlanta and Charleston work solely on personal cars
@@nazarenoperezpelicon947 Huh? Atlanta has 48 miles of subway train w 30+ stations, and a huge bus service. How is that only cars?
Miami is on the ocean, water table in your face. What exactly do you expect them to do, knock down all the buildings to run surface trains?
@@Nill757 No. Most cities were buldozed to make space for cars in the 50s and 60s. It didn't use to be this way and the US used to have a world-class public transit system before WWII for example
Thanks!
As an electrician in the Uk. This is very informative 👍 the struggle is massive. Not just batteries but the demand on the supply network.
now imagine that demand in 2030 when everyone gets home from work and wants to charge there cars! lol
I have to disagree with a statement you made at 11:40 - yes, it’s true that *one way* for solid-state batteries to become cost-competitive is for production to be scaled up and the price to be brought down. But another way is for traditional li-ion costs to go high enough that solid-state ends up cheaper.
If left alone, these issues should solve themselves fairly quickly. Rising cobalt, nickel, and lithium prices will create big incentives for greater investment in efficient mining, use, and recycling of those materials, and also competing technology at the same time. Given enough study and effort, solutions will be found, even if it’s as simple as the higher prices making it profitable to pay off everybody necessary in Nevada.
The great thing to remember is that the situation at every point in the supply chain may not be the same tomorrow as it is today. When prices are allowed to rise naturally as products become more scarce, alternatives will be sought out and implemented.
Love the work and thought you put into this! You earned a subscriber today 🙂
Na-ion batteries look quite promising, for starters. Sadly, I see too many people dismiss the whole idea of electric vehicles (or anything other than a diesel/gas engine!). Human ingenuity has surmounted plenty of obstacles before, much to the surprise of the historical critics of progress. I believe we have reasons to be optimistic in this case.
What if that alternative becomes ICE cars again?
How about reduce the need for car ownership in the first place?
It's much more economical to give people the choice of owning or renting a car for small menial task.
Planning and zoning areas where everything is so spread out where the residents have no choice but to spend unnecessary cost of having a car to get them where they need is very wasteful.
My main concern isn't pricing or efficiency; more than anything else, it's sustainability. Having every car in a continent and perhaps the world hooked up to a limited resource like helium is a *VERY* dangerous and stupid idea. When we run out, we're talking colonial America type shit until they can get the oil reliant cars and oily supply back up. Am I against lithium-ion batteries? In concept, God no. Do I think this sudden and abrupt shift towards them is a good idea? Nope because the technology just isn't there yet. If we can produce millions of lit-ion Cara and have them last until they're written off or at least ten years than fantastic. Problem is current lit-ion batteries only last like five or six at the most expensive which most won't pay for anyway and that's not accounting for how wasteful we are when it comes to cars. Toyota brings out a new car and you have to dispose of your older male for that new hip trendy car if ya know what I mean. Multiple times this year, I've had to talk my mother down from doing just that because the differences between models is negligible at best and non-existent at worst. If these car batteries become extremely long lasting then I'll be first in line to get an electric car. For now though, the prospect of an entirely lithium-ion powered Europe and UK genuinely scares me. That's also not getting into the propensity for lit-ion batteries to explode but I don't know if that's because of the E-Scooters being shit, a manufacturing issue when they're being fitted for E-Scooters or a problem native to the batteries themselves.
14:48, "Anyone who argues the opposite is..." basically bad. That is a dangerous statement. I read, from a respected scientific magazine here in my country, that EV do emit less emissions only when a certain number of KMs are reached, and that number was also heavily influenced by the energy sources used to charge the EV (as in, if you charge it in Iceland which is mostly geotermical an EV has much less emissions than if you charge it in china, heavily coal reliant). That seems to me a much more credible, balanced statemente than your arrogant assumption than everyone stating that EV do not emit less emissions is misinformed or trying to disinform.
I agree it's a dangerous statement, but I understand where it's coming from. It really HAS been proven a thousand times not just in studies but also meta studies. If that research you quote reached another conclusion, it's extremely likely they had a conflict of interest or made mistakes. Most of the times these studies ignored things like clean energy generation, battery recycling, took worst case scenarios for EVs while taking best case scenarios for ICE, etc.
Is it possible that they are right and the 95% that reached another conclusion were wrong? Yes, but it's not likely.
Very good point. I'd love to see some links to credible resources.... on both sides.
@@jakubmatys8860 agreed. although im biased to believe the more pessimistic approach. also it sounds more believable. Using coal to generate electricity to power an EV is going to be less efficient than gasoline
@@jakubmatys8860 I tried to share some links multiple times, but UA-cam won't let me unfortunately... :\
Amazing video (congratulations!) but 9:39 we're missing the MAIN SOLUTION: consume less --> drive less & car sharing.
Every model of emissions attributed to EV production that I’ve looked at has been so flawed that I can only suspect that the flaws are intentional. There are two mistakes that I’ve seen in every model. Lithium brine is a low emissions lithium extraction method. Until recently, half of the world’s lithium production comes from brine extraction. Lithium brine also makes up the lion’s share of proven lithium reserves, meaning that emissions will not linearly grow with substantially increased lithium production. Secondly, the biggest modeling mistake that I see is that all emissions from rock mining are attributed to the mine’s lithium production. Hard rock mines that produce lithium also produce tin, aluminum, gemstones and other metals and minerals. It’s deceptive to attribute all emissions from a mine to lithium alone. There is significant carbon and ecological cost to lithium mining, but not even well meaning publications can be trusted to correctly discuss and model these costs.
You should check out Auke Hoekstra, he regularly exposes such errors.
@@boldvankaalen3896 Wonderful recommendation. Thank you! Within the first minute of the first video I watched he succinctly nailed the “why” regarding problem - in the academic world the emissions savings over ICE is already well understood, so any new publication is just a retread and won’t gather academic interest. Since new research wouldn’t be different than old research it wouldn’t get clicks in media publications. As a result, new bad models keep getting pushed in the media while good models get ignored.
That just makes it even more obvious how bad ICEs are. All these errors on the EV side of the equation and the EV still wins in the end. How much worse would the ICEs look if the numbers were corrected? Or if anyone accounted for all the stuff ICEs use? There's always talk about "EVs get electricity from power plants that burn fossil fuels!" but I never hear anyone mention how much electricity (also from those fossil fuel plants) gets used to refine oil into gas, how much fossil fuels are burned by trucks to get the gas to the gas station, and how much fossil fuel powered electricity the gas stations use.
@@mjc0961 EVs are not the end all be all. Also you don’t seem to understand how clean modern ICE cars are. For instance on Sulevs the exhaust leaving the vehicle is cleaner than what went in.
@@mjc0961 you will never hear the other side of it... The people pushing the narrative of "EV bad" are being obtuse on purpose. I've said it before: Shilling Hard
You’re forgetting about electric planes. Energy density would be even more important for electric planes. Planes are much more expensive to begin with and need much more batteries. They may help provide the scale to drop solid state battery prices first.
Pure fantasy will never make sense beyond extremely niche applications. Hydrogen or synthetic petroleum will always power aircraft.
you would need a battery technology revolution to make batteries in planes feasible.
@@amanasd26 lets just keep the planes gas or whatever lol
@@kennguyen693 and possibly put more emphasis on boats over planes? Google says a cargo ship can travel 578 miles per gallon compared to 4.5 mpg for planes. Downsides being boats take a lot longer to transport and the risk of further polluting the ocean which is already a big enough issue.
@@DeathSensei So your saying electric boats would be a smart thing?
Dear Mr. Wen Dover, your humanity, while explaining the moral tradeoffs, without a shadow of doubt, opened a great many people's third eye. I just wanted to thank you for that. Helluva job you're doing. You sir are a good egg.
Yes. Rhymes with Bend Over but without any negativity.
this was genuinely one of the best videos i've ever seen on youtube. reminded me why i studied engineering!
Recycling and reusing batteries will likely be one way to cut on the emission caused by mining. Reusing car batteries in solar farms for example could be a way to reduce emissions.
This was truly a wonderful thought-provoking video and I so appreciate you broaching the subject. Keep up the great work.
A lot more countries have "promised" that they will ban the sale of *New* ICE vehicles by the next few years. But the second hand market will be there for people's needs. The other cars won't disappear from existence.
Exactly, but that actually alleviates the lithium issue. The video guy is assuming all vehicles will entirely pop out of existence that that there were no EV sales before that point, and that there is no transition period to buffer the lithium demand increase... granted, it is still a problem, but his math and point assume no lithium recycling and a 100% immediate shift towards lithium batteries. Reality is that announcing a future limit on hydrocarbon using vehicles will increase the demand now, ramp up slowly towards the phase out date, then continue increasingly gradually as old vehicles exit the market. This still represents a giant increase in lithium demand, but isn't as severe and sharp as they make it sound.
So what do you propose El Presidente'?? Of course it's something lifted from The Hunger Games, but it's all for the muh environment so it's all good..
And in a lot of countries those "promises" will be altered and postponed when the time nears because the production of electric vehicles can just not keep up with the demand and surely never will in only a decade. Even if people wanted. The amount of investment and above all the time required won't allow it.
It'll be like Soviet Russia, only rich people own cars and they will be pieces of shit. God I love the future!
@@Veldtian1 you are a troll hahaha
everyone have a great day and dont feed the trolls 😊😊😊
8:54 this lady got a whole baby on her back wtf 😂😂😂
great video - I'm glad you are tackling this issue that few people are aware of and presenting it in such a compelling and objective way.
Also: "CHINA...." *cuts to photo of LosAngeles* 4:13
Missed BIGGEST problem with Lithium batteries 🔋 🤔 🧐
= Not recyclable! ♻️🔥🗑
@@bthemedia But they are - at least the ones used for electric vehicles. The ones used in consumer electronics ............. people tend to throw away, but only because they can't be bothered/don't realise the damage they are doing.
Oil, used as fuel is definitely not recyclable, yet few seem to raise this as an issue and seem to think that burning it in our vehicles is OK.
Lithium seems very fundamental, it is so extremely fitting the purpose, while being extremely light, it has just one proton more than Helium. But it could be replaced by sodium (Na). That is available, cheap and practically unlimited, in the NaCl in seawater, for example.
Replacing lithium by sodium would be a minor setback in energy per battery weight, but solve the lithium supply problem permanently. Batteries without cobalt are already in use, cobalt is not a long term problem.
But also causes more harm than good from the sheer mining of the mineral than burning gas and rolling coal
In a vacuum, perhaps. Which life on Earth is not.
Yeah exactly...
India is already mass-testing this technology.
As you said, the only big downside is battery density.
But the pros outweigh the cons, like for real. Environmentally-friendly, cheaper, lighter in weight, and more.
If the charge rate is fast enough to allow a full charge within a few minutes, this can offset the energy density disadvantages.
@@Lauren_C I've heard that they charge faster while being more safer as well.
But we'll have to wait wait till late 2022 or early 2023 for this new "Sodium-Ion" tech to be showcased to the world, coz currently its undergoing research and testing.
I love the line, “there can be better alternatives to better alternatives.
ICE vehicles account for a tiny amount of total CO2 emissions worldwide. Eliminating them completely with EVs would hardly affect global CO2 emissions.
Cruise ships emit far more CO2 than ICE cars do. The only reason why people complain so much about them is because they're an easy target.
And private jets too
Cars pollute the air in cities where millions of people have no other choice but to breathe it in directly from the exhausts
@@iba7648 🤷🏻♂️
each car produces enough heat to warm a whole house. We have these things running around everywhere to transport one person at a time in 5000lbs metal boxes. They are an easy target because they were always a stupid idea.
@@heidenburg5445 🤷🏻♂️
8:26 "oh no, child labour", as if tire rubber, upholstery leather, mica for paint, and so on doesn't have the same issues. DW made a great documentary on where tires come from.
Or everything inside a smartphone.
This video started off depressing, got me feeling good toward the end and left me on a good hanger at the end. Well done Sam and team love the videos
Haha ikr
@@DyslexicMitochondria hey bro i watch your videos. Love your channel
the world is phooked.....
The other solution is to drastically reduce our reliance on cars. Obviously we can't and shouldn't get rid of them entirely, but we know that it's possible to make places where people don't need to drive to survive, and we have the technology, know-how and experience to start doing that right now. That seems like the obvious and easiest solution
Also people would be able to save so much money if they didn't need to buy or lease cars. Why can't we advocate for fast, reliable, and economical public transport? Oh, I know. People have become lazy and can't even imagine walking a minute or two outside their house.
Have cities designed with walkability and ease of public transportation. Then encourage car renting for when they want to get out of town for a weekend.
In a decade?
Yes. A bike, bus or train is much more effective per weight in transporting people around. It's easy to scream freedom if it's freedom for only yourself.
Let's just have everyone move into cities so we can all use public transportation. That'll never go wrong.
Well done, a thorough and intelligent insight into a truly 21st-century problem. I enjoyed every microsecond of your clearly enunciated, powerfully worded, logical assessment of one of the most important issues of our time. Thank you. I was transfixed.
Yo hard g
I'd have to disagree. First of all the video focuses on EVs. Yet, more of these materials are needed for mobile devices and tools, than for EVs. Second, It frames the problem as new, current and pressing disregarding the fact that these problems have been criticized for 20 years. Unfortunately back then there was no one interested in the criticism since no one could use it for his anti EV argument. Furthermore, he's fantasizing about solid state, a tech promised to be "around the corner" in 2016, while post lithium tech and LFP batteries are already available or currently launching, but most importantly, this has been a delaying effort for years: "look, solid state is around the corner, better buy a combustion engine now and wait for solid state tech". Creating hopes for solid state is a fatal signal.. Then it completely disregards the fact, that there's almost a decade left to ramp up production and everybody in the industry is heavily investing in it. It just gives one especially bad example of trying to access new lithium sources, while there are many others. Lastly, the video makes it seem, like this is an EV problem but it's a systematic problem. Many materials hav similar if not worse mining conditions if not worse. Again, since nobody can use it as an argument against EVs nobody knows about this.
The biggest problem of the century is not lithium. The biggest problem is the climate crisis and the misleading information and ignorance that prevents the world from acting on it, like it would be necessary.
Disclaimer: i'm not saying these problems should be disregarded, only that nobody should think 'oh well, better stick to my diesel truck' because even though mining is bad, mining and burning oil is worse and with proper pressure, these problems can be solved.
Thank you for your erudite and well argued response, it has been most enlightening.
@@kooooons
TOTAL BS. WHERE IS THIS BOOB GETTING HIS FACTS. FIRST, CO2 IS REQUIRED FOR LIFE ON THIS PLANET. AND CO2 MAKES TREES AND CROPS GROW BETTER.
Thanks Mom.😀
There needs to be a shift in the way people think of what's the max range they need. Shifting from the worst case road trips, to the 95% uses case. And we need to build a range of battery size options. It's not efficient to be lugging around an extra 80Kwh of batteries when you only need 20 for your everyday commute. It would be cheaper for a lot of people to buy a lower range EV that matches their commute, and renting a long range EV or swapping cars with a friend for road trips.
My car has around a 60-70 mile range with it's usable 15Kwh. And that's just about perfect for me, with a 25 mile one way commute. If my town had a DC fast charger it would be even better. The average US commute is around 40 miles round trip. I would love to see cheap EVs with 80-160 mile range.
It's hilarious that energy density and weight reduction of a battery pack can be mentioned without bringing up that 100 kwh can just be cut in half and be easily viable. Consumer mentality and certain cult leaders in the industry are truly unfortunate.
This isn't what consumers want. They want range they can use sometimes for long-distance trips. The idea of owning a car but still needing to rent another one if they want to go somewhere far will never fly with most people.
That sounds pretty nice, at the moment I live go to a college which is 6 hours away from my home, but in the future I plan on living in a small town somewhere so my commute to work each day would probably only be a 30 mile round trip. I wouldn't need any sort of high battery ev. I just wish we had a good bus system so I wouldn't need a car though.
But what if you want to go on vacation and you need to drive a long distance. Hiring a car for vacation is incredebly expensive. and so it is a waste to have a car with the short range and even with teslas it is still very timeconsuming. I drive to france pretty much every year so i dont want an electric car.
The answer is to follow the lead of the EU and charge corporate CEOs with one count of "Ecocide" for every month they don't think up a miraculous problem-free energy source. Punishment will make them smarter, the same way it did Russian industrialists under Stalin.
If only we had an electric transport technology that has existed for 100 years, is easy to maintain, and requires few rare earth metals.
I don't follow your train of thought. Could you please make public what transport you are talking about?
Aaaaand? What is that?
A bicycle
@@endjfcar a train
@@JaharNarishma more specifically a streetcar, trolley car, or tramcar depending on where you live.
The only correct way to measure human development is "how far away is the nearest Starbucks?"
god... my mother used to say that....
"you know that a country is developed by counting the number of cities with more than 1 starbucks"
"How much bad should be allowed for the greater good" => The ends justify the means => the justification for every evil in history.
Incredible video. The importance of lithium is critically understated currently, this does an excelent job of putting the issu in perspective.
Something that bothers me is that after hearing about the issues with cobalt and lithium, rather than trying to fix those issues or talk more about public transport, a lot of people just go "lithium bad" and then continue as normal with exponential extraction of oil and gas and multiple petrol cars per household.
Also buying a new iPhone every year, not realizing hmmm what powers that? That same lithium that was "bad" for cars is apparently just fine for them to buy a whole new phone with a whole new battery every year instead of keeping the same one for 3-4 years.
So? What is the problem with internal combustion? Go plant a tree, hippie
Because people are only interested in real solutions. Not fantasies.
To suggest public transit is the answer shows that you are so ignorant as to not be entitled to have an opinion as the matter That's like suggesting that the solution to poor communities not having internet access is to just use the post office. While technically a solution, it's such a useless solution as to be no solution at all.
in the near future, I see only the upper class being able to afford 60k+ for EV, privately commute and use the run ways. it solves traffic in and out of metropolitan areas significantly, especially in NYC (traffic on the LIE495, nothern state parkway is a nightmare. trust me it saves the government a **** ton of money as they don't need to expand highways to meet population demands). and the mid to lower class commuting via EV buses...an endeavor to banning gas powered engines by the next decade is not a dreamland, as you think... save the environment, narrow to ozone layers, save the seals, save the AIR! yea im for it 100%, but when you are scrapping crumbs to just GO by, and you are required BY LAW to have an ELECTRIC VEHICLE to be on the road that is WAY WAY WAYYYY out of your budget, it will start affecting your livelihood. they need to make these vehicles more affordable. its the same concept of why HIV medications and new diabetes/ dementia medications are SO expensive. its the pharmaceutical companies and corporal GREED. do you really think labor and materials are significantly costlier to manufacture one tesla vehicle vs a toyota/hyundai/ you name it....? sometimes the government needs to think more out of the box, rather than enforcing a "decree."
@@jurycould4275 you want too much
"[HelloFresh's] packaging is made from 100% recycled materials" - Ah, I see they are taking the Hollywood approach
Ev manufacturers and dealers are saying ev batteries are safe, kind of reminds me of tobacco producers saying the same thing about their products,.... we all know how that turned out !!
tobacco, ev batteries, fat free foods, Aspartame, Sucralose...
How about... reducing individual car use? You can make cities magnitudes more comfortable and reduce carbon emissions without increasing Li and Co production so much.
Unless you build a metro with an operating speed of 110kmh or better, I'm not interested.
@@legobin7963 why?
@@legobin7963 As someone who use mostly public transport, I also want faster metro, but I also realise, that average speed of car in city is hardly about the limit (which is often around 50 - 60 km/h) an it's far away from 110km/h.
In smaler towns, there will be need for car much longer, althrough It could be also reduced in peaks by public transport from "place to live" to "place to work".
@@birdrocket that's the speed of freeway travel
@@legobin7963 So you'd rather use your car and drive slowly through the city while stopping at every light than using the metro, if it's not going 110 km/h?
Yeah, that's as dumb as it sounds.
You didn’t even mention Canada’s massive lithium mining industry.
It's utterly dwarfed by the big four. Even Boliva only got a passing mention, merely because it's in a triangle with Chile and Argentina. Bolivia is believed to have one of, if not *the*, largest lithium stores.
Sorry eh!
Canada has all the stuff far more important than lithium. Silver, nickel, cobalt etc. Few understand this.
EVs are also harmful for the environment.
Cycling for short distance and public transport for long distance are the only solutions to reduce pollution in transport sector.
Using a 2Ton piece of metal to transport 1 or 2 people is never going to be "ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY"
No. But it's much MORE environmentally friendly than driving a 2 ton piece of metal with Gas or Diesel. A fundamental change in the way we do people transport is BIG process. Exchanging combustion for electric where feasible is a way to alleviate the problem.
THIS. Something people don’t talk about enough is that we can lower transport emissions by designing cities and infrastructure in such a way that we don’t rely on driving.
Nothing humans do is environmentally friendly that a win where you can is all we can do
@@Killerpixel11 short term yes. But we end up with a recycling problem, in which we just end dumping all our recycling to the third world. Like another wendover video that was mentioned last year.
EV production is not the magic bullet. It would help in our immediate area, but would still have far reaching consequences when it reaches the end of its cycle life.
Brain4breakfast has a good video regarding lithium production.
Agreed. The dutch know.
There is no free lunch and never will be .
As an EV-owner, I have these discussions a lot and I'd like to add one major argument here, that I missed: Recycling of Li-Ion batteries. Companies are already setting up or are set up in a small scale (such as Duesenfeld here in GER) and can regain a %-age of well above 90 from those batteries. Of course, large scale isn't done yet, because the batteries a) last very long in the cars (good thing) and b) often get a second life as stationary storage somewhere (also good), but my hope is, that the ramp-up of Lithium mining will plateau out some day. But of course, this will be far in the future.
Exactly.
BEV's make up something like 3% of the global market. How many resources does it take to get to %15? I worked in batteries for years, they are horrible polluters and should only be looked as a suspect partial solution.
"But of course, this will be far in the future."
I mean...considering that lithium reserves are expected to run dry within our lifetime...maybe not so far in the future after all..
@@meatsafemurderer7743 What is the expected life of the lithium reserve? I asked because I don't know and it's another important information to know. I'm curious on how they have determine the life and when it may run out. All of my long life I have heard one resource or another will run out in X amount of time. One example is oil will run out in ten years. Ten years came and went and another study said, it will run out in 15 years. Yet a third study would say, we have less than 5 years. Your information will give me a benchmark, and no if it is proven wrong I won't come after you. Like me you can only go with what you have read.
"because the batteries a) last very long in the cars"
Yeah, until they explode and kill someone, then require a massive amount of water to put out.
(also, nice pfp)
this channel and real life lore are miracles in our days, especially when they equipped you with the great information that we need in our life.
thank you for every effort that you have spent.
I am from Iraq.
Hello from america! One of my coworkers just moved here from iraq, we love you guys!
thank you so much for your kindness , I really wish you the best.
big salute for america and its great people.
The magic word here is "PUBLIC TRNSIT SYSTEMS" instead of electrifying cars we need to focus on moving away form our reliance on cars and if anything new smart cities should be developed where public transit is practical.
An electric bus is definitely better than an electric car, also some things like subways, maglevs, and trolleys can be permanently plugged in to the grid and so don't need batteries. (For primary locomotion anyway)
Obviously these are city centric solutions bit considering how most people live in cities its a very good starting point. Rural regions will always need some variation of the personal car (especially in cold areas) but cities shouldn't have them in the downtown area at all.
@@jasonreed7522a coal burning locomotive train replacing a hundred cars will probably still end up being a net benefit in terms of environmental consequences. We don't need fancy experimental EV buses, we need cheap buses that already roll off production lines in scale, that are so readily available that people stop bothering with driving. We can worry about electrifying the buses after the primary issue of replacing cars with mass transit is sorted out.
Remember that we have to compare this negative environmental impact to that of gas and oil extraction. When the lithium has been extracted it can be reused, oil and gas cannot.