The EV Transition Is Harder Than Anyone Thinks
The transition to luxury EVs is hard.  The transition to EVs is less hard.  Things get easier if you throw out some of the requirements that we didn&#x27;t need in the first place.<p>For instance, we don&#x27;t need cobalt to make batteries.  LFP cells are fine, though they may need extra insulation and heating&#x2F;cooling systems in cold weather.<p>We don&#x27;t need copper for the main power cables.  Aluminum is fine as long as you can properly engineer the connectors.<p>For that matter, we don&#x27;t need copper for the motor windings either.  Aluminum could work there too, it&#x27;s just that the motor will tend to be physically larger and less powerful.<p>We don&#x27;t need rare earths for permanent magnets, though again this means a bulkier and less powerful motor (unless you go with induction, but induction motors aren&#x27;t as efficient as permanent magnet motors).<p>We don&#x27;t need cars with 300 mile range batteries.  We &#x2F;do&#x2F; need cars to be able to make long trips in a timely fashion, but that can be addressed by increasing charge station availability or (what would be much better) electrifying our major highways so that vehicles don&#x27;t even need to stop to recharge.  If the average car has &quot;only&quot; 100 miles of range rather than 200 miles, that translates to being able to make a lot more cars with the same amount of batteries, and the cars can be a lot lighter.<p>Most people buying Rivians and Lightnings and electric Hummers are wasting resources that could have gone towards building three or four boring sedans or minivans.  Some people really do need trucks for what they do, but we could adopt policies that discourage truck ownership rather than encourage it (e.g. CDL requirement for vehicles with more than a certain power&#x2F;weight, get rid of the chicken tax to improve availability of smaller trucks, add visibility regulations to prohibit comically tall grills).