Bad Article

Lithium-Ion Batteries and Centerfolds

While I agree that there will be an increased place for lead acid batteries and the stocks of ALTI and HEV are ‘lottery tickets’, this article is very wrong on two fronts:

1) Nearly every major auto OEM and current battery maker (Toyota, Sanyo, Samsung, NEC, LG, Hitachi, etc…) has invested significant resources in large format Li battery development and the results are very encouraging. Such batteries have formidable advantages over current technology and will clearly power our cars in several years. Safety is an issue, but not one that cannot be overcome.

2) Lithium is the 35th most abundant element on the planet and the extraction process is rather simple. We have more lithium than we could possibly need. Furthermore, most batteries now use approx 1.5kg of Li / kwh or about 3kg for a standard 2kwh hybrid car battery. Even if prices doubled (which they won’t) to $7.00/lb this only means your hybrid car battery uses about $45 of lithium or a very small % of the over all cost.