Lithium, cobalt, rare earth and other resources are abundant. What are the problems that restrict the development of the electric vehicle industry? Matthias Buchet, an expert of the German Institute of Ecology, said in an interview with the Voice of Germany that the biggest bottleneck in the development of electric vehicles is how to rapidly transform the automobile industry.
DW: The popularity of electric vehicles seems to be faster than predicted. Previously, experts predicted that the world will produce about 130 million pure electric vehicles in 2030. This estimate has now risen to more than 200 million. Mr. Bucht, is there enough raw materials to put so many new electric vehicles on the road?
Bucht: There are enough reserves of raw materials around the world. Resource constraints are not the problem. Of course, there may be temporary shortages in the industrial chain. Whether in the actual mining process of raw materials or in the process of processing raw materials into finished products, if the demand suddenly rises sharply (it may face short-term problems). But this does not mean that the whole market will collapse, but the rising demand will bring market turbulence.
We experienced semiconductor shortage during the COVID-19 epidemic. At that time, there were temporary bottlenecks in the chips of automobiles and electronic equipment, and the delivery of some vehicles was delayed for more than a year.
For electric vehicles, people will certainly ask whether there will be a shortage of important raw materials for a long time. In this regard, experts from the German Mineral Resources Agency believe that the biggest problem is lithium, which is the key element of lithium-ion batteries. I would think that this situation is a reminder that the supplier needs to speed up to keep up with the rapidly growing demand.
DW: Do you think it will succeed?
Bucht: Let's continue to talk about lithium. At present, lithium is mainly mined in Australia and Chile, and a small amount in China. In the two major mining countries (Australia and Chile), there is little possibility of geopolitical instability.
In fact, there are many lithium mines in the United States, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe, but so far, only Portugal has carried out a small amount of mining. There are also potential mining possibilities in Finland, Austria, Serbia, Spain, Portugal and France. In Italy and Germany, the most ideal is to develop and utilize high-temperature deep groundwater rich in lithium.
DW: You mean, do you think the raw material field is mainly a relatively easy to control risk and problem? So what about the energy supply? More electric cars will also consume more electricity.
Bucht: Electric cars are very efficient. If the entire car industry and many commercial vehicles are powered by electricity, the total power consumption will not be ten times as much as the current one, but will only increase by about one third compared with the current total power demand in Germany. Moreover, there is still a great potential to save electricity in terms of electricity consumption, such as in the field of lighting or by replacing old appliances (using a new generation of more energy-saving appliances). These also apply to the industrial field.
DW: In terms of heating, due to the installation of heating systems with heat pumps, more and more electricity will be consumed in the future. Is there enough electricity?
Bucht: This is the second important area, which will certainly be involved. In the industrial field, due to the increasing use of green hydrogen energy and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, the demand for electricity is also rising, which requires a large amount of clean electricity. This is why the European Union and the German government want to expand photovoltaic and wind power stations on a large scale.
These are all major challenges, but the time left for us is not much, not 50 years.
(Germany) The federal government's goal of expanding renewable energy has been significantly tightened and tightened recently. I think a lot of time has been wasted in the past ten or fifteen years. This is why everything should be faster in the future.
DW: Electric vehicles also need more charging stations and larger grid capacity. Think about those debates about whether the power supply should be limited during certain peak hours, such as charging electric vehicles or heating with heat pumps, because the grid may not have enough capacity during certain peak hours.
Bucht: That's true. On the other hand, at other times, our power grid often has surplus power. We just need a better balance system, that is, an intelligent system. Then, the (electric) car may not start charging at 7pm, because it is the peak of electricity consumption, and it only starts charging at midnight.
As for the additional charging stations required (for electric vehicles), some studies have shown that there are not so many fast charging devices in public places, because many electric vehicles are charged in the parking lot at home or office. Of course, this does not mean ignoring the expansion of public charging infrastructure. But we must also be careful not to be trapped in a cocoon and overemphasize the problems we could have dealt with.
DW: But if people don't know whether there are enough charging stations, will they still buy electric cars?
Bucht: Of course, we must expand the charging infrastructure as soon as possible, and we also need more charging stations. This requires cooperation between public authorities and private investors in the energy industry. In addition, the energy industry recently said that the utilization rate of existing charging stations has been greatly improved, which can certainly increase the profit margin.
DW: If you are an expert, you should draw up a ranking table. From today's point of view, what factors are the biggest obstacles to the popularization of electric vehicles? What is the biggest problem at present?
Bucht: The biggest problem is probably that the supply of the industrial chain lags behind the demand.
In addition, some politicians said that there are other options besides electric vehicles, such as using synthetic fuels for internal combustion engines. But this is technically outdated. In the field of cars, the use of synthetic fuels (E-Fuels) -- even if the production is enough one day -- is also too inefficient.
The real challenge is the huge transformation of the automobile industry. Hundreds of billions of euros will have to be redistributed. Look at the production of batteries. So far, it has been mainly carried out in Asia. Europe will build more than 30 large factories for the production of electric vehicle batteries, more than half a dozen in Germany alone. This requires huge investment.
We also need battery cell components, i.e. cathode materials, anode materials, etc. To this end, Europe's capacity must also be increased faster. We must further trace back to raw materials through intermediate materials, which come from hard rocks, salt lakes or deep geothermal energy, such as lithium.
In my opinion, there is too little discussion about electric motors. To produce electric motors, so-called permanent magnets are needed, which in turn requires rare earth elements. So far, China has a strong position in magnet production. The United States, Europe and Australia all have a lot of room for improvement, which is why great strategic changes are needed here. The word "turning of the times" is appropriate here.
DW: You think there are still many problems to be solved in the development of electric vehicles. This may be just a small consolation, but the fact is that the development of internal combustion engine vehicles we are familiar with today also took a long time.
Bucht: That's right. The difference is that in the current situation, time pressure is very high. According to EU regulations, from 2035, only new cars with zero emissions can be sold, that is, they are completely electric vehicles. Germany hopes to achieve climate neutrality by 2045, so it is better to have no diesel locomotives on the road. Therefore, we only have 10 to 15 years at most to achieve these goals, which is not easy.
Matthias Buchet is the director of the German Institute of Ecology (Ö ko-Institut) in the field of resources and mobile transport. The Institute provides advice to the German government and has offices in Freiburg, Darmstadt and Berlin.
Source: Voice of Germany
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