Comments by "TeeKay" (@teekay_1) on "US Discovers Huge Lithium Deposit (What It Means...) || Peter Zeihan" video.

@davidcasey1119 think about when Lithium batteries first appeared... the 80's/90's.... and it was decades until they were useful in an electric car. That's the time scale you get into when you try to go from the lab to large-scale production.
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@skippy6086 I have some planes that run by rubber bands as well. They have landing gear and they've been in use for for 70 years, no human has been killed while using them.
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...and the problem with Lithium batteries is you can't have high energy density and fast charging times all at the same time. And I know the common refrain is "we'll figure this out". No, this is not an engineering problem, it's a science problem. Lithium is not the way forward. It's great for your hand tools, but to move cars? Nah.
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@azalea_moon-kee Exactly. Current guidance from automakers is "don't charge them up all the way, because that wears them out. And "don't let the charge get too low because that wears them out" And the kicker.... "Because if you wear them out, we have to charge you $16K to replace these batteries; and yeah, you'll junk them at that point".
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We actually have multiple lithium deposits in the United States, the problem is lithium mining and refining is notoriously dirty, so you can't get permits in any 1st world country to mine and/or refine it. Ask the EPA the last time they approved one.
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@incognitotorpedo42 okay, so 20 years.
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@masonm600 Well, Ford is losing (reportedly) $32K per electric car. And it's not clear if Tesla makes money on cars or the carbon credits. Governments are propping up the EV industry at this point.
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