When electric vehicles hit the roads en masse, they will have the latest lithium-ion battery technology under their hoods. If vehicles like the Chevy Volt take off, however, the environmental and economic consequences could be severe.
Commodity prices and availability are the concerns. Lithium has to be extracted from somewhere (such as Chile’s Atacama desert pictured above), and if EVs become popular it will have to be extracted in quantities large enough to keep up with demand. The more demand, the more expensive a commodity becomes, and li-ion batteries that are already possibly going to be fairly pricey could begin to really escalate the price of that car you wanted to buy.
Does that mean we’re trading fossil fuels for another finite resource?
The question is almost entirely academic right now. Some prominent scientists forewarn of harsh environmental costs of mining so much lithium — especially if demand ramps up beyond current projections. For instance, 1.5 million Chevy Volts — or equivalent plug-in hybrids — would be the ceiling by 2015 based on expectations of how much lithium can be produced.
The environmental angle is also something to consider, as salt flats that produce large reservoirs of lithium (there’s an especially juicy one in Bolivia) come under increased scrutiny. The large-scale mining necessary to extract enough lithium to meet demand promises to be fairly breathtaking — but then again, what’s the alternative?
Improvements in nickel-metal hydride batteries and advancements in zinc air batteries are always possible, not to mention creating recycling methods for the li-ion batteries on the market right now.
Still, gas prices this summer proved that automakers can’t afford to forgo the necessary evolution in technology. For now, lithium batteries it is.