Archive:000/Short-range electric vehicles

So far, the best EVs seem to come at a high environmental cost - especially rare minerals(...)( such as cobalt ) in the batteries. They also are quite expensive.

What if people were willing to drive cheaper EVs with less battery capacity(...)( either due to using batteries with less rare metal content, and/or just smaller batteries ) / less range?

• Clearly this doesn't cover all use-cases. Road trips would still need longer-range vehicles. But for common suburban commutes(...)( then again, maybe it's better to phase these out via walkability ), maybe it would be enough?

Suitable battery types

Some battery types are less energy-dense than lithium-ion, but also less reliant on rare metals:

• Lithium iron (not ion) phosphate batteries (existing tech)
• Sodium-ion batteries (possible future tech)

How much range is reasonable?

Optimistic scenario:

• Suppose there were as many charging stations as there currently are gas stations. And/or
• Suppose most people could charge their vehicles at their homes.
• What's the minimum amount of range that would be needed for typical day-to-day usage?

^{[QUANTIFICATION needed]}

Implementation

Ok so suppose there's a viable scenario - now we need to talk about the transition to it. There's a "catch-22" to overcome:

• Why would anyone buy a short-range EV if there aren't enough charging stations?
• Why would anyone build a lot of charging stations if not many people have EVs?
• Also, we can't expect long-range EVs to jumpstart the market, because they can't be sustainably scaled up enough.
  • (which is the whole reason we are thinking about short-range EVs in the first place)

Ways to overcome this:

• This list needs to be written. I'm open to any possibilities, no matter if they involve capitalism or communism.

Marketability

This section is not written yet.