In case of "your EVs dirty battery is made in china with the blood of orphans"....

cros13

I made a little list:

Tesla: Panasonic - Suminoe Facility, Osaka, Japan (and a few from the Kaizuka Plant in the same prefecture)
BMW i3: Samsung SDI - Ulsan Facility, South Korea
GM Bolt: LG Chem - Holland, Michigan Facility, USA
Hyundai Ioniq: : LG Chem - Ochang Plant, South Korea
Kia Soul EV: SK Innovations - Seosan Complex, South Korea
Nissan Leaf: AESC - Sunderland, UK | Osaka, Japan | Smyrna, Tennessee, USA
VW e-Golf 2013 - 2017: Panasonic - Suminoe Facility, Osaka, Japan
VW e-Golf 2017 - : Samsung SDI - Ulsan Facility, South Korea

None of them use chinese cells. Battery cell production is largely automated, there's little advantage going to china.
The additional emissions from EV production (10-15%) is offset in the first 4-6 months of use on average.

KCross

Do you have any good info/articles on the "your EV battery uses rare earth metals that are also running out" and the "your EV battery is an environmental disaster when it's eventually scrapped"

I've read various post/pieces to debunk these but is there anything definitive to "prove" it?

bk

KCross wrote: »

Do you have any good info/articles on the "your EV battery uses rare earth metals that are also running out" and the "your EV battery is an environmental disaster when it's eventually scrapped"

I've read various post/pieces to debunk these but is there anything definitive to "prove" it?

The thing about rare earth metals is that they aren't rare at all, large quantities can be found all around the world.

It mostly comes out of China simply because they can mine them for cheaper then anyone else.

BTW The Gigafactory in the US has also started producing batteries for Tesla.

cros13

KCross wrote: »

Do you have any good info/articles on the "your EV battery uses rare earth metals that are also running out" and the "your EV battery is an environmental disaster when it's eventually scrapped"

I've read various post/pieces to debunk these but is there anything definitive to "prove" it?

http://greet.es.anl.gov/files/lib-lca

Covers the whole lifecycle, focused on auto cells. It's from 2012, things have improved substantially in both extraction, manufacturing and recycling since then.

Focused on CO2 - UCS's report from 2015 (again improvements across the board since the studied period):

http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cleaner-Cars-from-Cradle-to-Grave-full-report.pdf

bk wrote: »

The thing about rare earth metals is that they aren't rare at all, large quantities can be found all around the world.

+1

bk wrote: »

BTW The Gigafactory in the US has also started producing batteries for Tesla.

The Gigafactory is producing only 2170s which are not going into cars until the model 3. Panasonic Suminoe also just started a 2170 production line.

zilog_jones

I think there are greater environmental concerns regarding the extraction of raw materials rather than manufacturing of the cells, but yes there's a lot of misinformation.

Also, once there are more EVs reaching their end of life, more batteries can be recycled so less lithium and whatever will need to be mined. But I don't know the real yield from recycling with current chemistries (i.e. how much useful material can be extracted). I read some of the life cycle PDF (first in cros13's links) but there were a lot of unknowns about newer chemistries, and it was too complicated

Actual re-use of EOL EV batteries (instead of recycling) is also fairly unknown right now. I've seen examples of people with off-the-grid PV/wind setups using old forklift batteries (lead acid?) for storage, but don't know if Li-ion EV cells could be used in similar applications.

KCross

Is there Cobalt in EV batteries or is it just for laptops/smartphones?

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/world/video-4-year-old-children-working-in-mines-for-material-used-for-phone-batteries-investigation-reveals-779250.html

They made reference to it being sold to China and then onto the multi-nationals!

gctest50

Cobalt ? yip

- the demand for it for use in ev cars make the price spike up

Dorsen, aged just eight years old, speaking to an interviewer in the rain and through a translator, said: "When I'm working here [ in the cobalt mine ] , I am suffering.


"My mother - she's already dead, and I have to work all day, and my heads hurts me."

sbsquarepants

bk wrote: »

BTW The Gigafactory in the US has also started producing batteries for Tesla.

The scale of this thing is nothing short of amazing. You have to hand it to Musk - he thinks big!

cros13

KCross wrote: »

Is there Cobalt in EV batteries or is it just for laptops/smartphones?

There are chemistries that don't require cobalt, and a lot of research money heading in the direction of those chemistries.

Apart from the human rights issues etc, cobalt supply is very inelastic since it's usually a byproduct of mining for other metals.
So it's the single biggest threat to large scale EV and grid storage adoption in terms of supply of material.

bk

You know, I really think this is a lot of disinformation put out by the oil and motor industry (other then Tesla) to create fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about EV's

I don't see anyone asking the same questions about the precious metals that go into making catalytic converters (platinum, palladium and rhodium) that every Diesel car has. Why not?

gctest50

bk wrote: »

.............
I don't see anyone asking the same questions about the precious metals that go into making catalytic converters (platinum, palladium and rhodium) that every Diesel car has. Why not?

Cobalt ,gets mined by artisanal - no "protection", no regulation - it's only about 50,000 a tonne

Rhodium etc is probably about 900 per ounce

Probably explain why they'd take more care

cros13

A 100kWh Tesla pack uses about 20kg of cobalt in it's production. A portion of that is recycled cobalt. Tesla has been worried about cobalt supply for years and they've been tweaking their chemistries to lower the amount of cobalt required.

My i3 isn't that far off, with 7.7kg per pack.

Again rumors flying on the cobalt content of the new chemistry 2170s tesla are producing.

bk

gctest50 wrote: »

Cobalt ,gets mined by artisanal - no "protection", no regulation - it's only about 50,000 a tonne

Illegal artisanal mining represents about 10% to 25% of the worlds Cobalt mining. Certainly far from perfect, but not as bad as you make out either.

What cost to drilling oil? The human cost of the oil wars? The environmental cost of Deep Water Horizon, etc.

n97 mini

I wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years time we've moved onto a completely new chemistry. Anyone remember nickel cadmium batteries?

Remind me, what company wants (wanted) to mine Lithium for batteries from Mount Leinster ?