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They have to deal with the metal/battery recycling problem otherwise they have to make a fleet of batteries every n years and deal with staggering landfills. U

They have to deal with the metal/battery recycling problem otherwise they have to make a fleet of batteries every n years and deal with staggering landfills. Uneven distribution of raw materials in such a case will cause tensions.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
Compared to the externalities of fossil fuels I suspect these challenges are easier to solve.
- smt88 4y ago
  Whether or not they're easier to solve, we haven't spent that much time trying to solve them yet. Compare that to fossil fuels, which have had billions of dollars of research poured into them. We know what the cheapest forms of harm reduction are for fossil fuels, and they're not cheap enough even for the budgets of multiple nations.
  - thoughtstheseus 4y ago
    Lots of players are active in the battery recycling space. Tesla’s former CTO, J. B. Straubel, departed to start redwood materials in 2017 as one example. Until recently it has not been much of a problem. I suspect hybrids will be the interim solutions until we get to scale with battery recycling.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      Is not just cars. Consider the disposable vaping pen. Those things need to be banned.
      - smt88 4y ago
        Unless I'm misunderstanding the units here, a Tesla Model 3 has a battery that holds 230 Ah, whereas a vape pen is closer to 280 mAh. So each electric car is going to have somewhere in range of 1,000 disposable vape pens. That doesn't change the fact that disposable vape pens should be banned, but it's an interesting data point in the recycling discussion.
    - jleyank 4y ago
      They will probably be the interim solution until the charger and power networks are up and going. Some of us have longer-haul driving in our repertoire, and carrying a charger beats the wait for (limited) charging stations. Or, perhaps, when the people we visit lack charging. It's also (still) bloody hard to carry a bucket of electrons to get a stuck car going - we'll need portable power units to clear, say, highway mass fender-benders.
      - maxerickson 4y ago
        Yes, but it's a matter of making them more than anything else. The F150 can charge other vehicles: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021/12/21/vehicle-to-vehicle-charging.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021... Throw a bus battery or a generator on a trailer and as long as the vehicles aren't too damaged to operate you can make quick enough progress clearing things out.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  Depends what you mean by "easier to solve." It's certainly not easier than not solving the externalities of fossil fuels, which is what we're currently doing. If we somehow mandated that fossil fuel externalities were solved (internalized), then perhaps we would find that solving the externalities of alternative energy sources would indeed by easier/cheaper.
  - Me1000 4y ago
    You're probably right, but that ship has long sailed, I fear. In order to solve for the externalities you've got to get broad buy-in, and people are already hesitant to spend money on a small device that captures participates and emissions at the source, to say nothing of a carbon-tax. So you're stuck with a political problem. On the other hand there is already a market for recycling of metals and batteries. So you've basically avoided the political problem entirely buy just telling people "you'll get X dollars back when you recycle your car's battery". Just practically speaking, a person has got to do something with their old battery, might as well get a few bucks.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    > It's certainly not easier than not solving the externalities of fossil fuels Sorry if I was imprecise. I meant dealing with the externalities of fossil fuels, even if 'dealing' turns out to be "change nothing and see what happens".
- code_biologist 4y ago
  The point is that one of the externalities of EV materials production is CO2 emissions. Mining and processing the materials is incredibly fossil fuel intensive. By the time you have enough materials for a meaningful percentage of the world driving with EVs our CO2 footprint will be significantly worse than if we had focused on hybrid vehicles with small batteries.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. A fossil fuel vehicle too takes a lot of non-renewables to get it ready to drive. Yet it also needs even more to keep it moving. And changing all their motors to electric is more work than replacing fewer power plants.
    - recyclelater 4y ago
      You’ve got the perfect wrong. The good is plug-in hybrid with 40 miles range and 1/8th the battery. 8 built for every electric car. Solves 90% of personal transportation needs with electric alone. The fox on full electric is criminal imho.
alfor 4y ago
It will be a large problem 20 years later ... in 2043 But there is already companies that do it now, used batteries are basically very high grade ore, well worth to recycle. But there is also a good change that we will have better chemistry in the next 20 years. I think it’s a net positive, with for sure some challenges along the way, meanwhile gas cars still work and will for a long time.
tzs 4y ago
Assuming that everyone in the world got an EV with a 100 ft^3 battery pack, and every 5 years that battery pack was replaced with a new battery pack and the old one was sent to a landfill, and that peak population will be 10 billion people, 72 battery landfills that are 20 miles x 20 miles x 50 feet deep would be enough to last 200 years. We will need to eventually figured out something better than disposing of batteries in landfills, but we have a long long time to figure that out.
thinkcontext 4y ago
Many batteries will be reused before being recycled. After their useful life for transportation they still have most of their charge capacity, so they can be used for grid storage. This is handy because it will allow used EVs to retain more value than otherwise.
jandrese 4y ago
Battery recycling is already ramping up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jim1nksFKTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jim1nksFKTI
theshrike79 4y ago
We can recycle EV batteries up top 95% efficiency _today_. And very very few of those even get recycled, because there's a huge 3rd party aftermarket for "expired" EV batteries. There's also a whole industry of people who fix individual cells inside bigger batteries when the official instruction is to scrap it and get a new one for $$$$.
- wnkrshm 4y ago
  What are the byproducts of the recycling? We can recycle gold-alloys 100% but there are cyano-compounds in the river after that.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    The tech is so new that most companies are pretty quiet on their actual methodology and what percentages they can recover. Competitive advantage and all. Reuse/refurbishing will still be the biggest use for EV batteries for the 2020's in my opinion.

paulryanrogers 4y ago

Compared to the externalities of fossil fuels I suspect these challenges are easier to solve.

smt88 4y ago
Whether or not they're easier to solve, we haven't spent that much time trying to solve them yet. Compare that to fossil fuels, which have had billions of dollars of research poured into them. We know what the cheapest forms of harm reduction are for fossil fuels, and they're not cheap enough even for the budgets of multiple nations.
- thoughtstheseus 4y ago
  Lots of players are active in the battery recycling space. Tesla’s former CTO, J. B. Straubel, departed to start redwood materials in 2017 as one example. Until recently it has not been much of a problem. I suspect hybrids will be the interim solutions until we get to scale with battery recycling.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    Is not just cars. Consider the disposable vaping pen. Those things need to be banned.
    - smt88 4y ago
      Unless I'm misunderstanding the units here, a Tesla Model 3 has a battery that holds 230 Ah, whereas a vape pen is closer to 280 mAh. So each electric car is going to have somewhere in range of 1,000 disposable vape pens. That doesn't change the fact that disposable vape pens should be banned, but it's an interesting data point in the recycling discussion.
  - jleyank 4y ago
    They will probably be the interim solution until the charger and power networks are up and going. Some of us have longer-haul driving in our repertoire, and carrying a charger beats the wait for (limited) charging stations. Or, perhaps, when the people we visit lack charging. It's also (still) bloody hard to carry a bucket of electrons to get a stuck car going - we'll need portable power units to clear, say, highway mass fender-benders.
    - maxerickson 4y ago
      Yes, but it's a matter of making them more than anything else. The F150 can charge other vehicles: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021/12/21/vehicle-to-vehicle-charging.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2021... Throw a bus battery or a generator on a trailer and as long as the vehicles aren't too damaged to operate you can make quick enough progress clearing things out.
tshaddox 4y ago
Depends what you mean by "easier to solve." It's certainly not easier than not solving the externalities of fossil fuels, which is what we're currently doing. If we somehow mandated that fossil fuel externalities were solved (internalized), then perhaps we would find that solving the externalities of alternative energy sources would indeed by easier/cheaper.
- Me1000 4y ago
  You're probably right, but that ship has long sailed, I fear. In order to solve for the externalities you've got to get broad buy-in, and people are already hesitant to spend money on a small device that captures participates and emissions at the source, to say nothing of a carbon-tax. So you're stuck with a political problem. On the other hand there is already a market for recycling of metals and batteries. So you've basically avoided the political problem entirely buy just telling people "you'll get X dollars back when you recycle your car's battery". Just practically speaking, a person has got to do something with their old battery, might as well get a few bucks.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  > It's certainly not easier than not solving the externalities of fossil fuels Sorry if I was imprecise. I meant dealing with the externalities of fossil fuels, even if 'dealing' turns out to be "change nothing and see what happens".
code_biologist 4y ago
The point is that one of the externalities of EV materials production is CO2 emissions. Mining and processing the materials is incredibly fossil fuel intensive. By the time you have enough materials for a meaningful percentage of the world driving with EVs our CO2 footprint will be significantly worse than if we had focused on hybrid vehicles with small batteries.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. A fossil fuel vehicle too takes a lot of non-renewables to get it ready to drive. Yet it also needs even more to keep it moving. And changing all their motors to electric is more work than replacing fewer power plants.
  - recyclelater 4y ago
    You’ve got the perfect wrong. The good is plug-in hybrid with 40 miles range and 1/8th the battery. 8 built for every electric car. Solves 90% of personal transportation needs with electric alone. The fox on full electric is criminal imho.

alfor 4y ago

It will be a large problem 20 years later ... in 2043 But there is already companies that do it now, used batteries are basically very high grade ore, well worth to recycle. But there is also a good change that we will have better chemistry in the next 20 years. I think it’s a net positive, with for sure some challenges along the way, meanwhile gas cars still work and will for a long time.

tzs 4y ago

Assuming that everyone in the world got an EV with a 100 ft^3 battery pack, and every 5 years that battery pack was replaced with a new battery pack and the old one was sent to a landfill, and that peak population will be 10 billion people, 72 battery landfills that are 20 miles x 20 miles x 50 feet deep would be enough to last 200 years. We will need to eventually figured out something better than disposing of batteries in landfills, but we have a long long time to figure that out.

thinkcontext 4y ago

Many batteries will be reused before being recycled. After their useful life for transportation they still have most of their charge capacity, so they can be used for grid storage. This is handy because it will allow used EVs to retain more value than otherwise.

jandrese 4y ago

Battery recycling is already ramping up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jim1nksFKTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jim1nksFKTI

theshrike79 4y ago

We can recycle EV batteries up top 95% efficiency _today_. And very very few of those even get recycled, because there's a huge 3rd party aftermarket for "expired" EV batteries. There's also a whole industry of people who fix individual cells inside bigger batteries when the official instruction is to scrap it and get a new one for $$$$.

wnkrshm 4y ago
What are the byproducts of the recycling? We can recycle gold-alloys 100% but there are cyano-compounds in the river after that.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  The tech is so new that most companies are pretty quiet on their actual methodology and what percentages they can recover. Competitive advantage and all. Reuse/refurbishing will still be the biggest use for EV batteries for the 2020's in my opinion.