Tesla's 2021 Impact Report (PDF)

Mark

I was drawn to this primarily by the section on battery recycling. Quite interesting.

As reported by Sam Korus at ARK:

"According to its Impact report for 2021, Tesla can recover raw materials from batteries with ~92% efficiency: for every 1,000 kWh worth of end-of-life batteries, Tesla recovers 921 kWh worth of raw metals to produce new batteries. The importance of recycling already is clear when cells don’t meet quality assurance during the manufacturing process. Tesla believes that “the costs associated with large-scale battery material recovery and recycling will be far lower than purchasing additional raw materials for cell manufacturing,” contributing significantly to continued battery cost declines and amplifying the importance of recycling as more electric vehicles reach end-of-life."

Impact Report 2021

Old_Joe

Thanks, Mark- that's indeed very interesting. Sounds promising.

Old_Joe

And here's a bit more in this area:

Electric car battery shortage looms in 2025, warns Stellantis boss

Edited excerpts from a report in The Guardian:

Carlos Tavares, the chief executive of Stellantis, one of the world’s biggest carmakers, has warned battery shortages could affect the industry as soon as 2025 as the transition towards electric vehicles accelerates.

Tavares warned that battery supply could be the next bottleneck facing the industry, just as carmakers around the world try to accelerate production of electric vehicles. Stellantis, which owns brands including Peugeot, Vauxhall, Fiat, Chrysler and Jeep after a merger last year, is aiming to sell only battery EVs in Europe by 2030.

“I can anticipate that we will have around 2025, 2026, a short supply of batteries, and if there is no short supply of batteries then there will be a significant dependence of the western world vis-a-vis Asia,” he said, speaking on Tuesday at a car industry conference run by the Financial Times. “That’s something that we can easily anticipate.

Tavares also warned that the shift to electric production could create “geopolitical risks” because of dependence on minerals mined in countries seen as strategic rivals.

“We may not like the way that those materials are going to be sourced in a few years,” he said.

☞ Link to Guardian Article

Anna

Why worry? By then the Musk guy will have conquered space supply chain transport and discovered new deposits of raw materials in the Orion belt. Tesla will sport super solar panels able to charge through the thickest cloud cover, when hidden under 20 ft of snow, through sky rises with panels in the underground parking, and, well just everything twitter never dreamed of before having the Mus-king-of-the-hill village.

Old_Joe

@Anna- If I didn't know better I'd think that you are being a little sarcastic.

Anna

@Old_Joe
Who me, never. I got it straight from the ox's horns.

hank

I was thinking along those same lines. Likely an entire car’s surface will collect sunlight for recharging batteries and propulsion some day. . Might very well look like regular paint. Not far fetched at all. But @Anna worded it so much better than I could.

Anna

@hank, A few years back a MIT group was doing research along that lines. I didn't keep up with it to see where it went. I'll see if I can find out and, if I can, I'll get back to you.

Anna

@hank, I didn't find anything currently going on at MIT. I guess my memory was bad. However, this review discusses some of the developments in the solar paint area. The old research I was thinking about resembled the effort going on at the U. of Toronto.
https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/solar-paint-hydrogen-quantum-dot-perovskite-solar-cells

Old_Joe

@Anna- Might not have been MIT, but I also definitely remember something along those lines- "paint" on the outside of buildings, if I recall correctly. But lots of times the way those kinds of things are reported suggest that the probabilities of success are much greater than they really are.

Anna

@Old_Joe, Yep but sure is fun in the formative era when it just might be the one. (I was adjunct to U.Utah Chemistry in the Pons cold fusion era. Years later I was assigned to a gov lab where they were still trying to see that elusive response and maybe did but maybe not, day after day. But sure was something wonderful if you ignored the illusion in the results.) All this change is a comin'; it's just around da corner is just plain more fun than things that don't stretch the imagination. So @hank is right. It's a round da corner.

More fun in fact than watching a fund go up, up, up and believing it possible. Sometimes things become possible and quite ordinary.

hank

Way OT -

My goal is to live long enough to witness the discovery of intelligent life (or what passes for intelligence) elsewhere in the universe. I’ve no doubt it exists in abundance. Problem is the vast distances. Any verification we intercept / detect is likely to have been from millions of years ago. Best guess is we’ll have proof within 50 years. Discovery of (non-intelligent) life forms elsewhere, however, should occur within 25 years - in which case I’ll be under 100. Likely there’s some lower life forms elsewhere in the solar system. Several moons and some planets are believed to harbor liquid oceans beneath the surface.

I doubt either discovery will much move or impact the average person. The R-wingnuts will deny and attempt to disprove it despite evidence to the contrary. And in the case of the younger ones who have lived thru years of rapid scientific innovation, it’s likely to elicit a “ho-hum” reaction.

You can find lots of info on the James Webb telescope. They just finished the “cool down” process as it operates at super cold temps. The mirrors are unfolded. Testing in June of this year. Operational in 2023.

Old_Joe

"My goal is to live long enough to witness the discovery of intelligent life (or what passes for intelligence) elsewhere in the universe."

@hank- Start local: Let's see if we can find some here on earth first.

Old_Joe

"adjunct to U.Utah Chemistry in the Pons cold fusion era"

@Anna- I am frequently overwhelmed and humbled by the education, knowledge, and life achievements of so many here on MFO. Many times I feel like a minnow swimming with the whales. Yes, I had very high hopes for cold fusion also. Maybe some day...

Regards- OJ

hank

Old_Joe said:

"My goal is to live long enough to witness the discovery of intelligent life (or what passes for intelligence) elsewhere in the universe."

@hank- Start local: Let's see if we can find some here on earth first.

@Old_Joe,

Yes - An unfortunate consequence of evolution. Dog eat dog. Not likely to be any better on any other inhabited body. I believe that all civilizations self-destruct at some point. Explains the puzzlement among many scientists that we haven’t discovered any yet. Intelligent life enjoys only an ephemeral existence in the great scheme of things.

I need to pick up some things at the hardware today as it’s warmed up enough to work outdoors now. Will look for a can of that solar gathering paint @Anna alluded to.

Anna

@Old_Joe, I think I have said it several times before. Human is not, ultimately, a viable species.

Old_Joe

@Anna- the older I become, the more certain I am of that.