Battery Shortage Slows Prius Sales; Will Batteries Hold Back Hybrids?
The Toyota Prius is among the most popular cars under the Cash For Clunkers program right now. But many people who want one will have to wait, as production of the popular hybrid has slowed because of a battery shortage. The supplier of Prius batteries, Panasonic EV Energy, can not keep up with Toyota’s 500,000 annual Prius capacity. While Panasonic EV says it should have its production capacity ramped up to a million units annually by mid-2010, this begs the bigger question;
Will battery packs hold back hybrid production and development?
- » See also: Prius Sales Could Soon Outpace Camry, Says President of Toyota U.S.A.
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Disclaimer; I am no fan of hybrid cars. It feels more like a band-aid for a much bigger problem. But for some people, the economics makes sense; hybrid cars get great gas mileage, and while they aren’t going to save the world on their own, the fuel revolution has to start somewhere, right?
One of the big problems with hybrids however is the use of battery packs. These packs are expensive because they use rare or hard-to-mine metals. The current Prius makes use of nickel-hydride batteries, and the upcoming Plug-In Prius will be using lithium ion batteries. But the shortages of Prius batteries, at a time where much of the world is pushing for more fuel-efficient cars, highlights the problems of supply and demand for electric powered cars. The problem is so severe that Toyota is delaying its decision to begin building the Prius at its Tupelo, Mississippi plant. That means the Prius still needs to be shipped in from Japan on those dirty container ships.
There are reports saying that in the next 10 to 15 years, lithium prices will double. Bolivia holds half of the world’s total lithium supplies, but they are holding out for now (side note; it would be a good time to explore the lithium stock market). Lithium prices have already skyrocketed from a few years ago, up to $8/kg from a $1.50/kg a few years. There are people out there who say don’t worry, there is plenty of lithium to go around.
But what these estimates don’t take into account is that lithium-ion batteries are found in more than just cars. Laptops, cameras, even iPods all use lithium, and while individually they use small amounts, I’d be willing to bet there are a lot more iPods in the world right now than there are electric cars. That all starts to add up, and may leave electric cars out in the cold.
The Chevy Volt also uses lithium-ion batteries, as does the upcoming all-electric Nissan Leaf. By 2015, demand could outstrip supply, if certain estimates are to be believed. Then there are estimates that place lithium as more common than lead, the main component in lead-acid batteries found in most cars today. Who do I believe?
The technology has been picking up speed, but with a slew of electric cars on the way from many different manufacturers, we might find ourselves at a bottleneck with supplies. This brings up many questions in regards to hybrids.
Is there enough lithium in the world to power a world of electric cars?
Will we move beyond lithium sooner rather than later?
Are there other batteries that could prove the salvation of hybrids, or are we witnessing a short-term fix?
Will this affect the popularity electric vehicles as a whole?
In fairness, this issue has been brought up before (and counterpointed) , but I think it warrants another look. If you’re like me, you take anything the internet tells you with a grain of salt (I learned the hard way not believe everything you read).
Tough questions, and there may not even be accurate answers right now. But it is a bridge that must be crossed one day. Will it be made of lithium?
Source: Left Lane News | Earth2Tech
I don’t think electric cars are a band-aid to the the problem. They might not be an end-all solution but they are a step in the right direction.
It’s certainly true to say that lithium batteries are used in many electronic devices, such as cell phones, laptops and iPods, and numerically (by units) these dominate. However the quantity used (by mass) in each is tiny, relative to the quantity needed for an EV or hybrid.
Lithium has a wide range of other uses, not related to batteries. Global end-use markets for lithium currently include: batteries; lubricating greases; ceramics and glass; pharmaceuticals and polymers; air conditioning; and primary aluminum production. (Sources: SQM, USGS)
While lithium consumption for batteries has grown significantly in recent years to become its main use, it is by no means lithium’s only application and currently accounts for about a quarter.
I read the linked counterpoint — really excellent article. So I guess lithium supplies are not a binding constraint. That’s very good to know!
But it’s always seemed to me that the problem with using batteries as the primary storage system in EV cars is the energy density. Even lithium batteries have terrible energy density relative to hydrocarbons. It seems like a better solution is a Chevy Volt type vehicle, but with a much smaller battery. In that case, the advantage of the electric vehicle is that the gas engine runs at peak efficiency all the time in order to produce electricity, which is then stored in a (much, much smaller) battery. So the battery is just there to help smooth out imbalances in the supply/demand of electricity between the gas generator and the electric motors that propel the car, not for longer term energy storage. By using biofuels that aren’t based on food crops as the hydrocarbons, such a car could also reduce oil dependency.
> I don’t think electric cars are a band-aid to the problem.
There is a difference between BEVs and Hybrids. Hybrids still use gasoline so are a bit of a band-aid
Until we have a greener solution, I definitely love this year’s model of the Toyota Prius - yummy!
Lithium batteries use around 0.2kg of lithium per kwh of energy storage, with every kilogram of lithium carbonate containing around that:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/06/bebop-ze-20090629.html
According to Chemetall we have around 30 million tonnes of lithium, or 150million tonnes of lithium carbonate available:
http://www.chemetalllithium.com/index.php?id=7
Note that these things are calculated at current prices, so that is assuming $8kg.If the price goes up, supplies tend to go up.
So the 24kwh pack in the new Nissan Leaf will need around 24kg of lithium carbonate, or 4.8kg of lithium.
That works out to around $38.5 dollars for a $10,000battery pack.
The price could easily go up tenfold without having a major influence on pack price.
There is no reason why it would need to though, as for around $22-32kg you can get lithium from seawater:
http://gas2.org/2008/10/13/lithium-counterpoint-no-shortage-for-electric-cars/
Note that they use the slightly higher figure of 1.4kg lithium carbonate per kwh - battery chemistries vary a bit in how much lithium they use.
That would give us an effectively unlimited supply of lithium for our purposes.
However, lets restrict ourselves to the reserves at current prices of 150 million tonnes, and lets assume that we can’t get any from Bolivia and jso rule out 50% of reserves.
Let’s increase the kilowatt hours for a car from the Leaf’s 24 to 60.
It turns out then that we might be running a bit short after the first 1.8billion vehicles or so!
It hardly seems a very urgent problem.
@ David Martin
As I point out in my article, many products other than cars use lithium for batteries. While the amounts may be small, when there are several hundred million of them, it starts to add up.
Also, China and India are still largely rural countries where most people don’t own cars. What happens in twenty or thirty years when they are heavily industrialized and if only half of their populations have cars? That is a billion cars right there, and that is without figuring that the human race is rapidly reproducing.
It may not seem urgent now, but there is more to this than just the surface argument. What if those billion new drivers decide they all need laptops and iPods, which also use lithium-ion batteries?
David Martin has put his finger on it. Even if all the people with electric cars also wanted laptops, iPods and phones, the amount of battery storage needed would be a tiny fraction (in mass quantity terms) of the amounts needed for vehicle batteries.
My laptop has six lithium ion batteries. The Tesla Roadster has 6,831 lithium batteries exactly the same size. That’s more than 1,000 times more lithium for the car than the laptop. A phone or iPod has a tiny battery even in comparison with a laptop.
A few years ago, I analysed the projected global demand for lithium battery material in fine detail for a major lithium material supplier, and I can assure you that demand for electric vehicles (by mass) quickly overtakes all other battery uses, because vehicle batteries are so large in comparison. Even then, batteries will still represent a minority of all lithium usage for the short-term future, as I pointed out earlier.
Incidentally, better batteries won’t help much. A typical lithium ion battery stores one electron per atom of lithium (or molecule of LiCoO2). A typical Li-ion battery is already about 60% efficient in this respect, so better batteries won’t use significantly less lithium, though they may be better in other ways.
If manufacturers stay with lithium chemistry for batteries, and there are good reasons why they would, then demand for lithium is clearly going to rise. This will probably increase the price, at which point currently uneconomic reserves will become viable. As we have an almost limitless source in seawater this is eventually where we may have turn. Material represents a small fraction of the cost of a battery (as David Martin has shown), so higher costs may be acceptable.
If the price of lithium becomes too high, then there are many other chemistries that will make a reasonable battery, e.g. nickel metal hydride (currently used in the Prius); lead-acid (as in every conventional vehicle today and quite effective for cheap e-bikes, particularly if developed further); and who knows what else. Engineers and economists will find the optimum cost-performance trade-off.
No battery can offer the energy density of a liquid chemical fuel, and none is likely to in the foreseeable future. Therefore, for those applications where energy density is essential, e.g. high duty cycle vehicles, agriculture, aircraft, shipping, we will need liquid chemical fuels, in the interim from petroleum, and subsequently sustainably produced, probably from plant or microbial sources.
This is a cryptic remark:
“Disclaimer; I am no fan of hybrid cars. It feels more like a band-aid for a much bigger problem.”
In essence, hybrid cars are just highly efficient cars that use batteries to store breaking energy and an electric motor to assist a gas sipping motor with torque when needed. What’s not to like about the first ever major leap in car efficiency? My God, they more than double our average fuel mileage.
Could you elaborate on what you mean about efficiency being a bandaid for some bigger problem?
Another point missed in the comments is that lithium is recyclable. You don’t burn it up like you do a fuel. I’ve been riding a hybrid electric bike since 2005 using lithium batteries and they are still like new. They will also get recycled some day.
I’m guessing that your reference to being burned on the internet was in reference to the biofuel debacle.
The commenter above is also correct. Other battery chemistries are coming on line. Batteries are not new. Every car made has about 70 pounds of highly toxic lead under the hood.
@ Russ Finley
My comment about hybrids being a band-aid refers to the fact that yes, while they double our gas mileage…they still use gas.
As for the rest of the comments, good discussion, I learned some things and my fears are alleviated…a little bit.