Electric Vehicles: Ineptitude, Apathy and Piles of Taxpayer Money

Commentators are quick to note that loan guarantees to undercapitalized companies are indistinguishable from sub-prime mortgages for busboys — the ultimate “heads I win, tails you lose” opportunity for the chosen few. While they’re right, of course, I think a superficial analysis of individual outcomes obscures deeper and more disturbing policy choices that are having a disastrous impact on American innovation, particularly in energy storage.

The ancients taught that necessity is the mother of invention, which is why we have such a wide variety of energy storage technologies. They each serve different needs and they’re each important in their own right because we live in a world where there are no silver bullets, and the best we can hope for is silver buckshot. Unfortunately, preferential governmental support for a specific technology or family of technologies is the equivalent of an intellectual abortion clinic. The mere act of choosing one technology group for favorable treatment stifles inquiry and innovation on other ideas that deviate from the government-sanctioned path of righteousness.

It’s official, OTHERS NEED NOT APPLY! 

Lithium-ion has been chosen as the golden child of energy storage, and sorry to the innovator who has an idea for a second-generation nickel metal chloride battery, a new flow battery, an advanced lead-acid battery or any other energy storage device or system that doesn’t pay grovelling homage to the official orthodoxy. In the end, society suffers when government chases the pipe dreams and promises of politically connected missions. While the taxpayers usually get fleeced, investors invariably get gutted. 

In August 2009, the U.S. gave a stunning $1.2 billion of ARRA Battery Manufacturing Grants to a handful of battery companies on the theory that good intentions would trump economics and usher in a golden age of electric cars to free America from the tyranny of imported oil. The 95 percent allocation to emerging lithium-ion technology compared to the five percent allocation to all other battery technologies combined said it all.

Nobody bothered to ask whether the world’s mines could produce enough raw materials to make the batteries at relevant scale. In most cases they’re still not asking, even though metal prices are climbing faster than energy prices. Power-drunk political appointees simply assumed there would be no critical supply chain or technology issues and staggered down the primrose path. Similar ill-conceived plans were adopted with reckless abandon by governments worldwide.

We live on a resource challenged planet where six billion people want a small slice of the lifestyle that one billion of us have and take for granted. Our world produces almost two tons of energy resources a year for every man, woman and child on the planet, but it only produces 8.5 kg of non-ferrous industrial metals. Given the stubborn and inflexible nature of metal production constraints, it doesn’t take much math skill to see the problem.

The stark reality is that we can’t make enough machines to have a significant impact on global energy consumption and CO2 emissions because the world's miners can’t provide the necessary raw materials. It's not just a question of lithium. The physical constraints on global production of aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, cobalt and a host of scarcer metals are staggering and the six billion people who simply want electric lights, a washing machine and maybe a refrigerator will not sacrifice their basic needs so that Tesla Motors (TSLA) can sell electric cars in California financed by a $465 million ATVM loan that it likely can’t repay.

The first fruits are evident. Existing and planned lithium-ion battery plants will be able to manufacture cells for 2.4 million EVs a year by 2015, however, they can only expect 820,000 units of demand in a high penetration rate scenario. While the looming global glut of cell manufacturing capacity is widely recognized, a more pervasive and perverse dynamic exists in the supply chains for several critical components those factories will need if they hope to manufacture cells. 

The following graph comes from an August 2011 presentation from Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. It shows that the global supply chain for anodes will be exhausted if cell production reaches 430,000 units per year while the supply chain for separators will be exhausted if cell production reaches 450,000 units per year. It also shows that the supply chain for cathodes and electrolytes will hit ceilings at 660,000 and 770,000 units respectively.

Since it’s impossible to manufacture cells without anodes, cathodes, separators and electrolytes, I have to wonder about the management teams that are building cell manufacturing facilities without first ensuring the integrity of their supply chains. The apparent lack of concern over supply chain issues is staggering. I can’t decide whether it’s reckless apathy or simply a childlike faith that the taxpayers, like doting first-time grandparents, are breathlessly waiting for any opportunity to provide whatever the golden child needs or wants.

How do you justify building cell-manufacturing capacity that’s three times greater than your best-case demand?