Tesla Megapacks are giant lithium ion batteries used in power plants for backup. One recently caught fire at a California power plant and a shelter in place order was issued. Burning lithium batteries are pretty darn toxic. There’s some serious downsides to lithium ion batteries.
Fortunately they don’t catch fire everyday. Then again, almost all electric cars on the road use some version of lithium batteries. The thing about cars is that there are lot of them on the road and on any given day a significant number of them crash. The thought of electric cars on fire sounds pretty scary. To me they are no more scary than gasoline cars. People don’t realize how dangerous gasoline actually is and we manage to deal with gasoline car crashes.
Right now there are some serious issues with lithium powered cars. Two big ones are the rising price of lithium and the limited supply. One would think that would put the brakes on transportation electrification.
In the long run it won’t. Lithium is a big deal now, but it won’t be forever. There are plenty of potential alternatives. Many of them use cheaper and more common elements in their construction. It’s only a matter of time before the better ones get commercialized.
It won’t be that hard to transition to better batteries. Electric cars and trucks will become more common. Personally, I won’t buy one until they are available fairly cheaply on the used market, but that’s just how I roll. Normally I prefer someone else to take the depreciation. Not only that, by then we’ll have a pretty good idea which batter technology will go the distance.
-Sixbears
For EVs to replace ICE vehicles will REQUIRE a new battery tech that doesn't rely on lithium or other exotic rare metals. Because there simply bis NOT enough Lithium on this planet to make enough batteries to power hundreds of millions of vehicles. But then the REAL goal of the globalists is not to replace ICE vehicles but to TOTALLY end private ownership of any type of vehicle.
ReplyDeleteOur economy, especially in the US, is very dependent on private cars. Unless they want to seriously tank the economy we need cars -of some sort. However, even CA has loopholes in their laws in case electric isn't ready for prime time.
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