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Transportation Businesses Technology

Lithium Industry Buildup Is Outracing the Electric-Car Boom (bloomberg.com) 204

Lithium miners are bulking up for a booming future when electric cars go mainstream. But speed bumps loom, with prices tumbling on a burst of new production and demand growth slowing in China. From a report: Between mid-2015 and mid-2018, prices for lithium, the soft, silvery-white metal crucial for rechargeable batteries, almost tripled as the world's fleet of electric vehicles hit the 5 million mark, and the auto industry began to fret over the supply of raw materials. That sparked the opening of six lithium mines in Australia since 2017 as companies raced to gain from an evolving technology. But while the EV boom is coming, it isn't here yet. Sales growth is slowing in China, the top market, and the drive to fill the battery supply chain has cooled. The result: A 30% price plunge for lithium that's spurring concern over where the bottom may lie. "The latest EV data did reveal slowing growth, inferring that on top of excess supply, demand is now a problem," Vivienne Lloyd and other analysts at Macquarie Capital wrote in a report this month. "The key interest for investors should be who is likely to survive."
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Lithium Industry Buildup Is Outracing the Electric-Car Boom

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  • by magarity ( 164372 ) on Monday July 29, 2019 @10:55AM (#59005844)

    What happened to Tesla's home power battery wall? Those get cheaper due to this increased supply and more homes can get those.

    • Good call... those even seem like something you could sell to people without solar panels as a whole-house UPS
    • What happened to Tesla's home power battery wall?

      They exist. However, Tesla has to build them with virgin batteries, rather than using cells reclaimed from wrecks, because the DIY types are buying all the packs they can from wrecked vehicles so they can repurpose them. Just one pack (Model S, I think) breaks down into five 5.2 kWh 24V packs, which sell for $1000-1250 a piece. That's about 4.4 usable kWh, and they are so high-quality that you can almost get away without a BMS. People are building their own powerwalls, and also frequently using the packs fo

    • What happened to Tesla's home power battery wall?

      They still sell them [tesla.com].

      Those get cheaper due to this increased supply and more homes can get those.

      Ha. No. They doubled in price not too long ago and haven't come back down. Cheap lithium is nice, but processing lithium into batteries takes time and machinery and Tesla doesn't have enough of either.

      • by Shotgun ( 30919 )

        Cheap lithium is nice, but processing lithium into batteries takes time and machinery and Tesla doesn't have enough of either.

        But, they will soon. Investors are going to look at the ample supply of raw materials and growing demand, then jump at the chance to invest.

        • by Shotgun ( 30919 )

          BTW, I've been looking for and pricing solar installations. Power at my house is proving to be unreliable, so I'd like a whole house UPS. Going solar with a power wall, or something similar is 3x or so more expensive than a gas-fed generator, but I'm thinking the maintenance cost combined with electric bill reductions will make up the difference.

    • Build your own power wall. Use Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) instead. It's cheaper and LiFePO4 is safer. Check out Will Prowse instructional videos on Youtube and he'll help you figure it all out!
  • Chile is a much larger supplier of lithium than Australia.

    http://www.lithiummine.com/lit... [lithiummine.com]

  • by Shotgun ( 30919 ) on Monday July 29, 2019 @12:10PM (#59006486)

    Isn't the free market wonderful. When something gets expensive, somebody somewhere will find a way to make a profit from it, which will make it cheaper again.

    With a little bit of a glut, maybe yard tools will move to battery power even faster. I've got a battery powered leaf blower, chain saw, and string trimmer. I just bought a battery driven lawn mower this past weekend. They are all lighter than the gas driven ones, much quieter, don't emit smelly fumes, and I don't have to pull on a damn cord to wrestle a finicky motor to run. Plus, I don't have to maintain containers of gasoline, some with varying mixes of two cycle oil. Right now, I'm dreaming of a battery powered riding mower.

    Tell the Australian miners to push the price of lithium back up by supporting companies making battery powered lawn tools.

  • Lithium Industry Buildup Is Outracing the Electric-Car Boom

    Good. Their price was inflated and availability restricted because the demand level from the sudden adoption and production ramp up of EV production sucked them all up - and was one of the primary limits on EVs as well.

    More will be available for other uses now. The lower price point will also enable the production of more affordable EVs, EVs with larger packs for increased range, and EV versions of other vehicle types - such as delivery vans and e

    • (Lenovo's touch pad early-posts for me again. Continuing...)

      While other technologies (e.g. Vanadium Redox) might be a better match for large scale energy time-shifting, EV requirements have driven the engineering of lithium cells with very good properties:
      - High efficiency (very low cycle losses)
      - Extremely fast charging/discharging. (High power density.)
      - Tolerance for a range of temperatrues.
      - Dom't spontaneously explode or catch fire.
      Though they may not be optimum, vehic

  • by atrex ( 4811433 ) on Monday July 29, 2019 @02:59PM (#59007796)
    In the US, EV adoption would be slowing because they cost $35k+ after tax rebates and incentives for anything with a decent range, and there's still no good answer on recharging them as efficiently as fueling a gasoline or diesel vehicle. They're basically a toy for what remains of the upper middle class here. Few people making less than $100k a year can afford them. Everyone else either goes for the SUV & Crossover vehicles in the $15-18k range or used vehicles below $7k.

    Cheap lithium might actually help the EV adoption rates, but probably not enough to make them competitive with traditional fossil fuel vehicles.

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