Electric cars have big challenges to overcome
Plunging battery price tag and lack of mined materials stand in vehicles’ way
On the slope of a thickly forested Czech mountain, three men in hard hats and mud-spattered fluorescent vests dig for the metal that could power a new industrial revolution.
They watch carefully as a mobile rig, mounted on tank treads, hammers and spins a drill bit hundreds of yards into the bedrock. Water gushes from the bore as the bit punctures an underground spring.
The men are prospecting for new sources of lithium, a raw material now found primarily in China and Chile that could become as important to the auto industry as oil is now.
Faster than anyone expected, electric cars are becoming as economical and practical as cars with conventional engines. Prices for lithium-ion batteries are plummeting, while technical advances are increasing driving ranges and cutting recharging times.
Here’s a look at what needs to happen before electric cars take over the world.
Car companies such as Daimler are getting into the battery business. Daimler has invested $590 million in a new battery plant in Kamenz, a sleepy city in eastern Germany.
“This is an important investment in the future,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Daimler executives and other dignitaries at a groundbreaking in May. Within a few months, workers had erected prefabricated concrete walls for the enor- mous new building and assembled the roof girders.
“The battery is a crucial part of the vehicle,” Kaufer said as he walked through the assembly line of another factory in Kamenz that is already running at capacity.
“We are already in touch with some battery-makers,” said Richard Pavlik, manager of a European Metals subsidiary overseeing the work in Cinovec, as he watched the drilling crew.
As for cobalt, it comes primarily from the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the world’s most wartorn and unstable countries. Illegal mining operations there have been accused of using child labour.
Companies are hunting for sources in less problematic locations. First Cobalt has announced plans to reopen a former mine in the aptly named town of Cobalt, Ont.