This is not really a practical objection for two reasons: demand increases mineral reserves, and we're unlikely to ever have 1 car per person globally. Right n

This is not really a practical objection for two reasons: demand increases mineral reserves, and we're unlikely to ever have 1 car per person globally. Right now there is very little demand for lithium compared to the economically recoverable reserves. But the way mineral discovery works, as demand increases more money and effort is invested in finding new resources. There is absolutely no danger that ever-expanding lithium reserves will ever be exhausted by any reasonable vehicle production numbers. It's not even a given that per-pound prices would have to increase, as shown by the success of enhanced oil recovery having a break-even in the $30/bbl range now. Lithium is also just about the least expensive part of battery production. The cost of lithium in the market could increase by an order of magnitude and only affect battery cost by perhaps 10-20%. It's not reasonable to project 1 vehicle per person globally for many reasons. Economics, geography, the built infrastructure, and demographics affect vehicle ownership. The techno-society changes such a massive increase in vehicles would bring are enormous and unlikely to evolve soon. Transport paradigms that work in one area, say the US, aren't likely to work in all others. Using US vehicle numbers as a world-wide projection just isn't reasonable. A more reasonable thought exercise would be to replace all the vehicles in existence with electrics. At about 1 billion vehicles on the road today, there's plenty of lithium to do so, even at current known reserves.