The Cost of Batteries in Electric Cars Go to the Sky over Costly Cobalt

One battery expert said: ‘I’ve had multiple Chinese carmakers in my office really worried [about cobalt supply]. They wish they’d thought about this two years ago.’ They find themselves bidding against the likes of wealthy companies like Apple and Samsung for supplies. At the beginning of 2017, $32,500 (£26,300) would buy you one tonne of cobalt. Today you’d have to fork out $81,000. Since 2016, cobalt’s price has spiked enormously, and it’s all because of batteries.
Cobalt is an essential component of the lithium ion batteries that power our phones and laptops, and which are expected to be a key part of the world’s energy mix. ‘In 2017, we saw demand from the battery sector at 102 GWh, but we expect that to increase to 709 gigawatt hours by 2026,’ says Caspar Rawles, market analyst at Benchmark Minerals Intelligence.
If this keeps up no one will be able to afford Electric cars(not that they are cheap now).
tallbloke.wordpress.com/2018/03/…alt-blues/
I know there are a lot of new battery types out there, but so far none has proved as successful as lithium Ion. Let’s hope technology will come up with a better battery that uses more common elements.
h/t Natura Naturans

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