Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bloomberg Predicts EVs Cheaper than IC Engine Cars Within 10 Years (computerworld.com)

Posted by timothy on from the well-there's-already-a-big-overlap dept.

Lucas123 writes: With the price of lithium-ion batteries continuing to plummet, already dropping 65% since 2010, electric vehicles will become cheaper to own by the mid-2020s, according to a new report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The report also forecasts that sales of EVs will hit 41 million by 2040, up from 462,000 in 2015. By 2040, EVs will make up 35% of new light-duty vehicle sales, even if the price of crude oil goes back up from $33 today to $70 in the future. The adoption of EVs will displace about 13 million barrels of oil per day by 2040, when the clean-energy cars represent about one-quarter of cars on the road.

2 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Peak battery by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

    Huh, never realised Li was so rare. That "not made directly by stars" line in the wiki entry seems a bit suspect, though. Strains belief that at no point in the core of a star, a He ever captures a neutron or proton or deuteron.

    The problem is that lithium is both rarely produced, and rapidly consumed. Lithium can absorb neutrons, and can also absorb protons (Li7 + H = 2He4). Lithium reacts so easily that it is used as a major component in thermonuclear weapons. When a star forms, Lithium is one of the first elements consumed and depleted from the core. Citation: Lithium burning.

  2. Re: Li-On batteries by beelsebob · · Score: 3, Informative

    They absolutely do try to put petrol car fires out, because they melt the tarmac underneath, and end up needing the road to be resurfaced if they don't get put out. They're relatively easy to put out - just need to throw foam at it.

    Meanwhile, with lithium:
    1) The fire burns hotter (around 600C rather than 450-500ish for petrol)
    2) There's basically nothing you *can* put on it to put it out. Water will react with it, nitrogen will react with it, CO2 won't smother it, foam will react with it, dry powder can't smother it. About the only way you can put out a lithium fire is to bury it in sand, and that requires several dump trucks to somehow get near a 600C fire, and even then, you get a big blob of glass to clear up off a highway.