TAMPA, Fla — From the customizable options to the velocity, it is secure to say Blair Johnson is “team Tesla.”
“Love this car,” he stated.
Well…for probably the most half.
“My only change is that it kinda looks like an egg,” Johnson stated.
But form apart, he informed ABC Action News that he made the change to an electrical car eight months in the past due to fuel.
“I was driving a Jeep with a four-inch lift, 37-inch tires and I switched careers. And I did the math, and it’s cheaper for me to get the tesla and get the new car payment than it was to get gas,” Johnson stated.
Johnson stated the financial savings are simply $50-100 a month for him.
And he isn’t alone—in accordance to the International Energy Agency, Johnson is among the millions of people who bought an electric vehicle in the last year.
And the company expects that this pattern will proceed to ramp up over the following 10 years.
But Florida Gulf Coast University Finance professor, Dr. Tom Smythe informed us that this progress comes with some rising pains for a key element of electrical car production.
“Lithium prices have exploded over the last 9-12 months,” he stated, “And as long as that’s the case, right now, the primary source of energy for those vehicles is lithium batteries. By definition, there is a limited supply and therefore prices are rising,” Dr. Smythe stated.
To put it in perspective, between 2010 and 2021, the value of lithium basically tripled from about $5,000 per metric ton to about $17,000—and it is nonetheless climbing.
And if unchecked, he stated this pattern could lead to sticker shock for electrical car house owners trying to exchange their batteries down the road.
“I think that’s when consumers may start to feel the pinch. Especially if we don’t open up lithium production,” Dr. Smythe stated.
And fixing the issue comes with its personal challenges.
FGCU professor and mining knowledgeable Dr. Thomas Missimer— stated the most important deposits of lithium for these batteries are sometimes discovered in nations which might be politically unstable—making mining and exporting it difficult.
“85 percent of the reserves on the planet are really in three countries, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile,” he stated.
And stateside, mining lithium usually comes with environmental restrictions.
“For example, there’s a recent discovery of 11 million metric tons in Maine, but it’s never going to be mined because of the restrictions of mining in that state,” Dr. Missimer stated.
So what occurs subsequent? Well, Dr. Missimer stated a doable resolution all however surrounds the state of Florida.
‘”If we look at the lithium in the oceans, there’s 5,000 times more lithium in the oceans than the crust of the earth.”
And he added that the repair could be so simple as pulling lithium from the wastewater at crops that flip saltwater into drinkable water.
“Some of my colleagues in the middle east have come up with a very innovative method for extraction, taking it out of the effluent at desalination plants which is more concentrated, about twice that of seawater,” he stated.
He’s additionally submitted his personal proposed repair to the federal authorities.
And provides that he cannot stress the dire nature of issues sufficient because the change to EVs rolls on.
“Within 40 years we’re going to run out of conventional mined lithium,” Dr. Missimer stated.