Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "EV's Not-so-little Dirty Secret(s)" video.

  1. He's quite right about a couple of things but also a questionable on others. I am an engineer who works in industrial control systems and automation. I have worked in both manufacturing and mining and know both industries quite well. In the short. He's quite right we simply do not have enough supply of certain raw materials to go to a full EV system. In particular Lithium and a couple of the other ingredients just aren't there in the quantity needed even if the Ruskies were being good boys. On manufacturing he's NOT as right. Other than the drive train (fuel system, engine, gearbox, drive shaft,... there's actually NO DIFFERENCE in making and EV or any other car. The body shell, doors, glass, seats, seat belts, sound system, steering wheel, suspension, chassis, wheels and tires are still the same stuff. Depending on the manufacturer something like 80-95% of an EV is the same as a normal car. In the longer story. On the mining of some of these metals like Lithium and Molybdenum those projects can take many years to go anywhere. There's a Molybdenum mine in Western Australia and a company I worked for did the electrical design for the processing plant. That was around 2007-08. The GFC smashed that project. But they did get it done and mined the site from 2010 to 2014. Its now in care and maintenance. So there's at least 1 Molybdenum mine that can be brought back into production fairly quickly. The company that owns it has a good coper & molybdenum ore body nearby but they have not yet developed it. At that's one thing about mining, they wont spend money digging stuff up unless there's a market to sell it to. So they don't look at what the markets are today they are looking 3-5-10 years into the future. Plus to actually mine some of these minerals can be damn hard. Sometimes the percentage of what you want is tiny. They measure gold in grams per ton of ore. Copper isn't much better. And getting it out can be seriously hard. They dissolve gold with cyanide and copper with sulphuric acid. So a lot fo the processing gear is fairly serious stuff. Right now there are people scrambling for finance for projects but these thing take time to plan, procure build and get operating. Typically from the first time an ore body is found its at least 5 years until first dirt. Some projects go for about decades until first dirt because the markets aren't right or there's other mines producing what's needed. Even when everything looks good there's still that fact you are hoping to dig dirt and turn it into money. Its quite a difficult thing to get a full appraisal on an ore body and it can be horribly expensive if you get it wrong. I watched BHP, 1 of the biggest mining companies on the planet blow over $3 Billion on a Nickel project because the geologists did not check properly and guessed wrong. So I'd say Peters quite right on the supply of raw materials, but depending on what the Chinese and Russians do next that can change rapidly.
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  2. On manufacturing Peter's again right about a couple of things and totally wrong on others. Yes Tesla is making the chassis (the frame of the car) out of Aluminum, but the casting process they are using is is state of the art and very cost effective. I watched a video where it was explained and even though I am not an Elon Musk fan in any way some of his engineers know their shite and know it very well. The original concept for the Tesla Roadster came from a couple of very smart guys who knew what they wanted. They were not restrained by the business practices of the major manufacturers and were incredibly innovative. Elon himself has, despite his claims, had fark all to really do with the car, which is why its pretty decent. The same can be said about SpaceX. I have had a ride in one and it was excellent. Elon himself is a shite engineer but what he is utterly brilliant at is identifying technical opportunities and exploiting them. Where peter is misunderstanding some of the manufacturing is that thing engines and gear boxes and differentials are not cheap items in a build process. There's precision castings, precision bearings, cam shafts, valves, head assemblies, crankshafts, pumps and gears and all sorts of stuff to make a drive train. Teslas have a battery and an electric motor. So it has more expensive materials but its also a lot simpler to make. and install the drive train. But I also think Peter is dead right and that because of the available supplies we wont see a lot of long haul trucks or farm machinery go electric for a long time. He is dead right that its a massive task that a lot of people have badly misread.
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