Monday, July 13, 2020

No cobalt

Three years ago I posted that Tesla was going to find a new source for the cobalt required in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Most of the world's supply came from mines in the Congo, where children worked under dangerous conditions.

Now they've gone beyond re-sourcing the cobalt . . to eliminating cobalt altogether. And that is going to give Tesla another leg-up in the EV car business.

Big electric batteries put EV's out of the reach of many car buyers. They make EV's roughly 30% more expensive than internal combustion engine (ICE) cars to purchase (though they're cheaper to run). Cobalt made the price so high, but no longer.

Tesla's new cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate battery is already being used, with the Chinese government's approval, at the new factory in Shanghai. Purchase price of a new Tesla is going to go down. 

Traditional cars are going to lose some of their advantage. Let's see what happens.

from Forbes

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