At Current Rates, Tesla Could Soon Suck Up Worldwide Supply of Li-Ion Cells 351
cartechboy writes "Lets just say Elon Musk may need to go battery shopping, like, big-time. Here's some little-understood Tesla math that could turn the global market for cylindrical lithium-ion cells upside down by 2015. It turns out the massive Model S battery takes almost 2,000 times the number of cells a basic laptop does. Assume Tesla just doubles production from its current 21K cars/year to 40K cars/year. (Something it expects to do by 2015). At that point, Tesla would require the *entire* existing global capacity for 18650 commodity cells. That assumes no other growth, no next gen model, nada. What should Elon do? Better get on the horn to Panasonic and Samsung."
Re:Statistical fallicies (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously: http://xkcd.com/605/ [xkcd.com]
I bet someone in battery manufacturing is looking as adding capacity now in anticipation of such events. This could be quite an opportunity for some manufacturer with a bit of foresight. As more companies make and sell more electric cars I doubt Tesla will be the only company hunting for more, cheaper, better.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:price competition via supply shortfall. (Score:5, Interesting)
The question to ask is what happens to the price of a laptop and a Tesla if the price of the batteries increases.
A laptop uses maybe 6 cells which retail on amazon for about $10. So a doubling of prices would at most cost a laptop owner another $10 which is almost in the noise.
A Tesla if using 2000 times the number would cost about $20k more. That is pretty significant.
The Great Horse-Manure Crisis of 1894 (Score:3, Interesting)
The Great Horse-Manure Crisis of 1894. Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure.
Re:On the plus side... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep...
For your average Li-Ion battery they are in cylindrical cells and output around 3.7v each. Li-Poly are similar but instead of hard cylinders they are laminated sheets one on top of each other, allowing for more variety in shapes and are the most common for phones; downside being they do not put up with as much abuse and can be damaged resulting in an internal short and the eventual boom/fire.
Re:On the plus side... (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem is that nobody's allowed to make big batteries for use in cars because the oil companies bought up all the patents:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries#Chevron_and_Cobasys [wikipedia.org]
This is the reason they have to use 8000 tiny little flashlight batteries in cars instead of a few dozen big ones.
Re:so glad for the solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Lithium doesn't come from rare earth ores. It's in fact almost on the opposite end of the periodic table, being the first metal (after hydrogen and helium).
It's mainly found in Bolivia, which is a bit of a problem: Bolivia would like to have a domestic battery industry (higher revenue), instead of exporting raw lithium. The problem? A 20th century socialist for president, who is quite successfully scaring away international investment. As a result, the main exporter is Chile, which has smaller deposits.
In reality, bolivian government is not allowing transnational companies get the lithium for pennies, as they do in other countries who were servile to transnational power, or as happened in Bolivia before.
They are investing heavily (Bolivia is still poor, but its economy is growing steadily, while other countries were affected by the world crisis) in their own R&D, and they consider that no matter how long it takes for them to get everything going on, it's better than the alternative that letting trasnational companies get the lionshare of the profits.
Think about it, 2 alternatives for Bolivia.
A) Zero pennies now, for getting big profits in the future by controlling its own Lithium production.
B) Small profits now, letting the corporations get the lionshare forever.
They chose A, wisely IMO. In fact, that example should be followed by more poor countries, isn't this a good way to stop corporations greed to keep them in poverty while they earn huge profits on the resources of the country?
Re:price competition via supply shortfall. (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you really think demand is low enough today that economies of scale haven't already kicked in? If we want cheaper batteries we need cheaper processes to manufacture them, not more economies of scale.
What electric cars might do is ramp up economies of scale on better battery tech that is being developed, but I doubt there is much to be gained from economies of scale on existing battery tech.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Perspective is important (Score:4, Interesting)
The big issue is making enough batteries for millions of EVs, and that will take some planning for the necessary expansion.
Luckily all the big manufacturers have been building battery plants - the problem is that automobile manufacturers haven't been building good enough cars around those proposed battery packs to fully utilize those factories.
A few examples:
Nissan / AESC: Finished a large battery plant earlier this year in Tennessee thanks to DOE loan. Currently only supplies batteries for the Nissan LEAF (24 kWh battery pack), which sells about 1,600 / month or 20,000 / year in the USA. Maximum capacity of the plant when fully ramped up is claimed to be around 150,000 / year or over 12,000 / month.
LG Chem: Finished a large battery plant last year in Michigan thanks to DOE loan. Unfortunately, has been sitting idle for some time, though is finally starting to produce batteries for the Chevrolet Volt (16.5 kWh battery pack). Maximum capacity of the plant is claimed to be around 60,000 / year, currently the Volt is selling about 1,600 / month or 20,000 / year in the USA.
A123: Finished a large battery plant in 2010 in Michigan thanks to DOE loan. Capable of 30,000 battery packs/year. Unfortunately a very large bad bad of batteries delivered to Fisker and Fisker's demise also lead to A123's demise whose assets were bought out. Still operating, and delivering batteries for the Chevrolet Spark EV (20 kWh battery pack). Unfortunately the Spark EV is a low volume vehicle so far only available in a few markets. Launched late June, only sold 130 through July (August sales numbers should be out soon).
Anyway - my point is that there is plenty of supply out there for lithium batteries right now - there are more plants than just the ones mentioned here - both in the USA and abroad. The competition is tough (see A123's bankruptcy and others, too) so despite low interest loans manufacturers are going under. What's needed is a few more plug-ins with a bit more appear - either more utility or lower price.
Both Nissan / GM / Tesla have shown that the public will buy electric cars if they are good products and priced right.
Nissan says they are actually selling all the LEAFs they can make and are currently capacity constrained after a big price drop for the '13 model - they are apparently being conservative in ramping up production capability. Inventory levels support their claims. If Nissan could get at least 25% more range into the car (and perhaps a more neutral package) without increasing the price, I think they could easily sell quite a few more EVs.
GM needed to drop the price of the Volt - they finally did so for the '14 model and they are saying as a result August will be their best sales result yet. Inventory levels support their claims. If GM could get the Volt drivetrain into a slightly roomier vehicle without sacrificing much efficiency and keeping the price down, I think they could easily sell quite a few more PHEVs.
Tesla has finally worked through most of the backlog of their USA orders (there's only so many people who can afford $70k+ cars) and are starting to ship product to Europe. They are expecting to stay at maximum capacity for the foreseeable future (over 2,000 Model Ss / month).
Re:Lithium. What, do you think, is the name root? (Score:2, Interesting)
Handbook of Lithium and Natural Calcium: "Lithium is a comparatively rare element, although it is found in many rocks and some brines, but always in very low concentrations. There are a fairly large number of both lithium mineral and brine deposits but only comparatively few of them are of actual or potential commercial value. Many are very small, others are too low in grade."
Places lithium is being mined have on the order 20-100 ppm by weight of lithium in the rocks being mined, and the few highly productive places currently producing it are extracting it from salt flat brine instead.
Re:Lithium. What, do you think, is the name root? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read there is up to 28 million tonnes (depending on who you ask) of lithium available for commercially viable mining, and the total quantity of lithium on the planet being something like 3 million billion tons (only a fraction is actually accessible, of course). Lithium is about as plentiful as nickel.
If we go with a conservative 8 grams of Li per 100 Watt-Hours of battery capacity, that 28 million tonnes translates to 355,000,000 megawatt-hours of storage - Enough for nearly six billion 60kWh Tesla vehicles. That's roughly five times as many vehicles that are thought to be on the road on the entire plant today.
Granted that only a portion of our lithium production goes to batteries, but even if we consider those other uses there is nothing like a shortage of Lithium on the horizon. The bottleneck is entirely production related.
Plus, unlike oil, lithium is not consumed when used and can be recycled.
=Smidge=