Electric Vehicles' Battery Problem

Writing by Sam Denby
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation by Josh Sherrington
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster

Select footage courtesy Getty and AP; Select imagery courtesy Geolayers; Select music courtesy Epidemic sound

[Tapakapa]

One way to cut the growing demand for lithium, cobalt, etc. is massively shifting mobility towards public transport, cycling, and walking in combination with more efficient land use promoting these modes of transport. It's not an easy fix either, but we've known that it works for decades and we have all the technology we need for it, so we can start that shift right now.

[lewblank]

One thing Sam should get tons of credit for is the story organization. This is an INCREDIBLY complex story and he's done a phenomenal job turning it into a well-organized, easy-to-understand story

[elric]

I just read a bunch of the comments and not a single one has mentioned how all these EVs will bring many (or most) power grids to their knees or worse. The infrastructure simply isn't in place to handle the kind of demand charging all of those vehicles will require. California is already begging their citizens to try and charge their EVs in "off" hours so as not to cause brown outs and outages. I can't imagine how things will work when the number of EVs multiplies like they want.

[AlexBesogonov]

As for lithium, there's a reason it's found in dry places. It's because lithium salts are dissolved by water, so they get accumulated and concentrated only in dry places.

[jonathanhall]

“Artisinal mining” is such a classy way of phrasing forced child labor in unsafe conditions
Seriously, hats off to whoever came up with that

[wright.boy_]

The irony of HelloFresh sponsorship is pretty strong here. Every ingredient uses disposable, one-time-use packaging, and each shipment requires another freezer pack and high cost individual shipping. It produced a laughable amount of plastic waste compared to shopping at a grocery store.

[kittycat]

The Hello Fresh ad at the end is truly ironic

[hugos]

no one's talking about the radon gas that gets kicked up from the mines/ground from the drilling for lithium, and the green acid sludge that companies let sit at mining sites from the extraction process left to percolate and destroy ground water and lakes and streams cause no one wants to deal with that stuff or rather have no solution to that huge waste problem

[loowyatt]

I am a geologist and every time I say this to someone who's on about electric cars will fix everything... The issue is more how much we are using raw materials not what we are using... We reached peak mining in 1980s for most raw material, every years it's getting more and more expensive to mine these resources... Sadly our entire economic system is measured by growth which can only be fulfilled by more mining more resources

[savvapouroullis]

Very well said. I'm in the mining industry and I often tell friends that there is no such thing as ethical cobalt, and that the massive battery boom is going to be powered by unethical mining in central Africa. People tend to not register or believe me. It's just too inconvenient to admit that almost everything about our 21st century lifestyle is made possible by child labour in the DRC, and too easy to ignore unfortunately.

[conorh]

Laughed out loud at the sponsor at the end of the video being Hello Fresh. After 20 minutes of green talk, a sponsorship from a company that packages each tiny ingredient in plastic, then ships it to you? I know that the creator is smart enough to know that this plastic is indeed not 'recyclable'.

[TubersAndPotatoes]

How reusable/recyclable are the batteries after their end of life?
100% lithium recovery?
50% recovery?
Are we going to be facing a massive pollution problem from these batteries being tossed in landfills or storage like with plastic bottles, used solar panels, used wind turbines?

[SkylarsTerribleMemes]

of course, hellofresh will help me reduce my impact on the environment by packing literally everything in an absurd amount of plastic.

[sebdude]

Great video as always, however you did made one mistake concerning solid state batteries, they will mostly likely not decrease the usage of the mentioned metals. This is due to a mixup between energy density and energy content. As of now the energy content (so capacity) defining part of a battery is the cathode. So for an imaginary battery pack with 100 kWh of standard lithium ion batteries one needs at least the same amount of cathode as for a 100 kWh battery pack of solid state batteries (even if there is a significant weight difference between the batteries, explaining the different energy density). The difference then is in the anode and the electrolyte, for state of the art batteries a mix of silicon and graphite is used as anode and a solution of usually lithium hexaflourophosphate in organic solvents is used as electrolyte, while in the case of for example Quantumscape Lithium metal is planned to be used as anode and a ceramic made up out of Lithium, Lanthanum, Zirconium and Oxygen will be used as electrolyte. So for most solid state batteries there will be more lithium required per kWh! Better solutions for alleviating the problem of metal demand however do exist, for example LFP cathodes, which require Lithium but no Nickelr or Cobalt (as used by Tesla in their standard range Model Y and 3) or Sodium-Ion batteries (not as much industrialized and applicability for EVs not proven, but in the product pipeline of CATL). But again otherwise great video, more people need to be educated on the ramifications of the required electrification of the mobility sector.

[johnsonp.]

I love how the nearest Starbucks is a measure of sparseness.

[miquelgorbivi]

Very good segment, only thing missing here is the discussion of waste with the lack of recycling technology.

[yellajosyulaprabhat]

"How much bad should be allowed for the greater good?" The question with which this video ends is not only applicable for EVs but for a lot of things. That is such a powerful question.

[nikhilgala]

Wendover Productions: "How much Bad should be allowed for the Greater Good ?"

This is by far the simplest way someone has described the issue the modern world is grappled by!
Great video, once again 🙌🏻

[apokalypz]

Curious, did you review how PCB's are made for the electronics and how many times those parts are shipped back and forth across the world before being final assembled and in the end use device??

[ThRjunCjun]

BanninG IC engines is not a solution to the problem. Its a shift of the economic burden. This is literally just kicking the can down the road and its sad how fervent people argue on each side. As if we didn't do this exact same thing with oil vs nuclear energy, and apparently we learned nothing as a society. yes I'm 100% in favor of nuclear powered EVERYHTING