Price of Lithium Needed to Make Electric Car Batteries Up 472% in Last 12 Months
President Joe Biden and his greenie cohorts continue to push electric vehicles as a panacea for the high cost of gas, but EVs have high costs of their own that the left continues to gloss over, and the costs of the batteries that run EVs is a prime example.
From manufacturing them to replacing them, these battery packs are a major expense.
One of the key ingredients in the battery packs that power EVs is lithium. This mineral is important in the production of glass, aluminum products and batteries of all sorts, especially for electric cars.
According to Mining.com, battery-grade lithium carbonate is up 95 percent thus far in 2022, and a whopping 472 percent over the course of the past 12 months.
As the soaring prices of lithium and other minerals needed to manufacture EVs soar, the costs of battery packs for EVs are seeing pressure. Already the battery pack is one of the most expensive parts of an electric vehicle, with prices ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 to replace them — and that does not include labor.
Industry analysts claim that an EV battery pack can last between five and 20 years, and while new electric car buyers will not likely face the cost of replacing one in the short term, anyone buying a used EV might expect to have to sink up to $25,000 more into their purchase when their used battery pack expires — and that would be a back door cost on top of the purchase price of the used car that might make procuring a used EV cost prohibitive.
Another important issue is geopolitical. While the countries of Australia and Chile are two of the biggest exporters of lithium, Visual Capitalist notes that China is also a main source of the mineral and currently sells nearly 20 percent of the world’s supply. Indeed, two of the top five lithium-mining companies in the world are based in China, MiningTechnology.com reported last year.
That means higher prices and more orders to fulfill the needs of EV manufacturers necessarily enrich China, one of the most oppressive nations in the world.
Despite these drawbacks, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg continues to push Americans toward electric vehicles. Buttigieg has even claimed that buying an electric car will save Americans money.
“Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people, as well,” Buttigieg said earlier in March. “Last month, we announced a $5 billion investment to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network, so that people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.”
While that is strictly true, most Americans cannot afford a brand new $50,000 EV. Three times as many Americans buy used cars as new ones. The average selling price of a used car is $22,000, and many Americans settle for used cars costing under $15,000. That is a far cry from the $50,000 for a new EV!
Put another way, at 3.92 percent interest, a $22,000 car loan will cost a driver $404 a month for a five-year loan. Meanwhile, that same car buyer would be paying $920 a month at that same interest rate for a new EV.
In fact, it is more than $50,000. According to CNBC, “The average transaction price for an electric vehicle (EV) is $56,437.”
For further comparison, Americans use roughly 650 gallons of gas per person per year, or about $250 per month at the current average of $4.50 a gallon, The Motley Fool reported. At that rate, a driver would have to be buying an awful lot of extra gasoline to make up the $500 monthly difference between the $400 payment for a gas-powered car and $900 for an EV.
It gets even worse when you realize that Biden is spending billions more of our tax dollars to push his green dreams.
In December, for instance, Biden launched his Electric Vehicle Charging Action Plan that will cost America billions.
The price tag on Biden’s “EV Charging Action Plan” is about $7.5 billion, with $5 billion slated for funding for states to build a national charging network and $2.5 set aside for “communities and corridors through a competitive grant program that will support innovative approaches and ensure that charger deployment meets Administration priorities such as supporting rural charging, improving local air quality and increasing EV charging access in disadvantaged communities.”
If we have learned anything from the massive waste in COVID “relief” spending, one has to wonder how much of that $7.5 billion will actually go to benefit EV drivers.
As the federal government continues to pump billions in stimulus for electric vehicles, that money will eventually stop flowing from the U.S. treasury to car manufacturers. And once that spigot is turned off, prices will rise to compensate for the loss.
Finally, pushers of electric vehicles claim that EVs are clean and green. But where does the electric that charges an EV’s battery come from but our national electrical grid? And what powers that grid? In the U.S. in 2021, over 60 percent came from fossil fuels, including 22 percent from of the energy sources that greenies say is the “dirtiest” of them all: coal, a power source they want eliminated.
It all tends to show that Democrats and environmentalists are talking out of both sides of their mouths with electric vehicles.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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