Their aim was to demonstrate and promote the recently invented motor car. In addition, they celebrated the new Road Act, which that year raised the speed limit from 4mph to 14mph and removed the need for a man to walk in front of each motor vehicle waving a red flag. Quite a breakthrough for drivers of the day.

The cars taking part that day included those powered by electricity, steam and the internal combustion engine (petrol): back then it was a three horse race, technology wise. The internal combustion engine eventually won out of course. Fast forward to today and we take for granted the quite incredible travelling capability of modern cars. We Britons collectively drive 250 billion miles a year in our 30 million cars – all but 2,000 of which have internal combustion engines.

But the world is changing. Nobody can have missed the twin issues of Climate Change and fossil fuel depletion. Road transport in Britain is responsible for 20% of our CO₂ emissions, the main Climate Change gas. About a third of our oil imports are burned in our vehicles – some 25 million tonnes each year. Two excellent reasons to make a change.

On top of that, and perhaps more importantly for your average motorist – petrol and diesel are escalating in price and will continue to do so as the world runs out of oil. It was only two years ago that we hit the £1 per litre mark, at the time quite a traumatic event – how much further past that are we now – and how much longer before we hit £2 a litre? My guess is less than 5 years.

So we need an alternative to the car as we now know it.

And it’s ‘back to the future’ in fact – with electric cars making a comeback. So far the numbers are pretty small: a little over 2,000 of them in Britain. But all the major motor manufacturers have now either launched a fully electric car, or will do so later this year. You can go out and buy one, they’re just like ‘real cars’ – with some obvious differences.

Upsides and downsides of course. Upsides are a lack of pollution from the exhaust and the possibility of filling your car up at home – even making your own fuel from solar panels on your roof. The main downside is range. Cars hitting the roads this year will have a range of up to 100 miles, and to many of us this sounds like nowhere near enough. There’s even a name for the feeling many people get when contemplating electric cars – ‘range anxiety’.

The fact is we’re all used to driving cars that can cross continents. But we don’t use that capability. In Britain, 99.3% of all car journeys are actually less than 100 miles. Range anxiety is thus misplaced, though still having a very real impact.

People are also concerned about a lack of charging facilities on the road, somewhere to plug in. There’s actually a chicken and egg problem going on – one of the big reasons more people don’t buy electric cars is due to a lack of places to charge-up and companies are not installing places to charge-up due to a lack of electric cars on the road.

And that’s where our Electric Highway comes in. It’s the world’s first national network of charging points – it’s for electric cars and it’s on Britain’s motorways. We’ve completed phase one already, joining up the cities of London, Exeter and Manchester. Phase two will be completed this year and will see ‘top up zones’ at every Welcome Break motorway services in Britain.

They’re currently free to use, all you need – apart from an electric car, van or bike, is to register with us for a free smartcard (to access the chargers). We’ve created the Electric Highway to kick-start Britain’s electric car revolution – because we thought it needed doing.

Later this year we expect to install the first of a new breed of very fast chargers – from flat to full in 20 minutes. At a stroke electric cars will have overcome their only real drawback – their ability to travel great distances, and refill very quickly. It’s an exciting time for electric cars – perhaps on a par with 1896, when the new Road Act made cars suddenly rather more practical as a means of transport.

Nationwide rapid charging will achieve the same thing for the electric car.

[sociable /]

You may have read about already it in the Sunday Times this weekend. You shouldn’t have, but they broke the embargo on our story three days early for some reason – perhaps they’re a bit keen for stories that don’t involve phone hacking. Bless….

Anyway – Why are we building this Electric Highway? There are after all only some 2,000 electric cars on the road today. In fact that’s a big part of the reason – a lack of demand.

It’s often said that one of the reasons more people don’t buy electric cars is because of a lack of charging facilities – while the reason more charging facilities aren’t built is said to be because not enough people are buying electric cars – classic chicken and egg stuff. We’re hoping to break that impasse.

And at the same time another barrier to the faster take up of Electric Cars – is something called ‘range anxiety’ – the fear of running out of juice when doing any kind of serious distance.

So this is where the Electric Highway comes in, a national network of charging posts, installed on Britain’s motorway network; national facilities for electric vehicle owners – and long distance journeys. We’re hoping it’ll help kickstart Britain’s electric car revolution.

We chose the motorway network for good reason. The big focus to date, with charging posts, has been town and city centres – I think this is actually where they are needed the least. Car use statistics, point to this.

The average car in Britain does maybe 20 miles a day, a distance that most modern electric cars can sustain for almost a week without needing to charge. And most car owners have access to off street parking (70% apparently) – and therefore are able to charge at home, at night. Most cars won’t need to charge, most days. It’s the longer journeys where charging is needed most.

We’ve chosen where the power for this network comes from carefully too. The Electric Highway will be wind powered – and in doing this we’re making a serious point. Britain needs to switch to electric cars as fast as we possibly can – but that alone is not enough. Where the electricity comes from is vitally important. Electric cars need to be running on renewable energy sources, the power of the wind and the sun – only then does their full potential become realised – zero emission driving.

And can we do that as a Nation? Can all of us drive wind powered electric cars. The stats say yes.

There are 30 million cars on the roads of Britain, between them driving 150 Billion miles a year and burning some 20 odd million tonnes of oil. Oh and producing 70 million tonnes of CO2 (12% of our total emissions) in the process. Incredible numbers but we could power all of that with just 10,000 of today’s windmills and 5,000 of tomorrows (they double in size every few years).

And can the grid take it? It would require an increase in electricity delivered through the grid of about 12%, far less than most people think. And for context, pre the credit crunch, grid delivered electricity grew by around 3% a year (so we’re talking just four years normal growth to power all the UK’s cars). And most charging will take place at night, at times of low demand. The grid can easily cope, in fact if Britain switched to EV’s the grid would operate more efficiently.

And consider this. One of the truly revolutionary aspects of electric cars is that we can all be our own oil companies – we can make our own electricity – and power our own cars. A typical 5kW roof top solar system, for example, could provide some 5,000 miles of driving a year – pollution (and fuel duty) free.

Given this, perhaps in due course, the ‘anxiety’ around electric cars will pass from motorists to the oil companies – and maybe the government.

I’ve been meaning to post something before now, but the last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. Here’s a quick heads up, some stuff you might know already from the news, some you probably won’t.

The car arrived in Stroud nearly three weeks ago now (Tuesday the 28th Oct) looking simply awesome. It was the first time I’d seen it in it’s finished form, complete with grey and black union jack paint job and all sorts of other bits and pieces – it really is transformed from the car that was here in the summer of 09 – for a few months.

The day after the car arrived I took the Sunday Times out for a spin. They loved it and published a piece the following Sunday. I haven’t put a link here, because you have to pay to look at it (I guess Murdoch needs the cash to fight the evil BBC).

The Friday of that same week I went for a spin with Robert Llewellyn. That was a bit scary truth be told – never knew he had such a heavy right foot… . Actually, what made it (more) scary was that each time he hit the throttle hard, or came off it, the car twitched, we had a bit of torque steer going on (which was unusual). This turned out to be an early symptom of a problem that would show itself later. Robert made a short video of our spin, which actually was a hoot – you can see that here.

The following Monday (after the Sunday Times piece) I went for a spin with a guy from the Press Association and the torque steer ‘twitch’ under the big right foot of Bobby L, turned into a permanent pull to the right under more moderate acceleration – the problem was developing. I thought it probably something to do with the motor controllers and made a mental note for the engineers to rectify when they next have the car.

And then the next day (fatefully) I went for spin and shot some video with John Vidal from the Guardian. John wrote this piece which appeared in the Guardian the following Friday. And he posted this video on their website.

As you’ll see (or you may know already) the Nemesis broke down……..!

We were on our way to our local windmill to take the final shots of the day, and as we crossed a mini roundabout we just lost drive completely. Had to get out and push, I think he kept filming for a while, in true professional style……

And bless him, he said he wouldn’t use the breakdown as part of the story, didn’t feel the need. I thought that was quite lovely. But the temptation was obviously too much, as you can see or read in the G – it became part of the story.

That wasn’t really a surprise, it was a bit disappointing, but it was understandable. What was a surprise was the stuff that was actually made up – the claim that the Nemesis is known as the ‘Beast of Stroud’, for example – it certainly isn’t, and the first I heard about it was in the Guardian. I think that’s stretching journalistic licence a bit too far.

Anyway, one of our engineers dropped everything to blat to Stroud and take a look (Thanks Bob). The problem was with a small 12 volt battery that drives the motor contactors (the electro mechanical bits that pass the big currents to the motors) – it had gone flat.

Turns out that the diode used the charge the 12v from the main 400v traction battery, had blown. The component was well within design specs, so we suspect a fault in the diode itself – we’ll see. The falling voltage in the 12v battery caused the motor contactors to behave erratically – that’s the working theory. So far it’s holding.

With the problem solved we were off the next day (Thursday) to London for a launch party for the car and for our Ecobonds (I’ll post about ecobonds later, promise).

The party was fab. Probably the best bit for me was that Damon Hill turned up. Here’s a picture.

The next day we were off to Brighton to get ready for the RAC Eco rally, which started the following day (Saturday). The rally ran from Brighton to London, the day before the historic event that runs the other way round. It was fun.

The car park of our hotel was like a spaghetti junction of cables and junction boxes, as the fleet of cars re charged over night – at least in theory anyway. There were obviously some electrical load issues – the Nemesis left that car park after 12 hours of charging, with less in the batteries than we started with……. nice….

But no problem, we still had plenty. We all lined up along Brighton Sea Front and left, kind of race style, at 30 second intervals – somehow we managed to be car 63 of 64.

On approach to the start line an RAC guy came up to the car and said something like ‘can you spin the wheels or something all these Teslas are being really boring’. The wheels won’t actually spin (something we’re looking into, we think there’s some very conservative torque control going on) – but I told him I could ‘boot it’.

And boot it I did. Not too madly, since the start was arranged with a bottleneck of people just in front of it. Short phone video here for your amusement.

And with that we were off to London, my least favourite place in the country to drive to – not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to this.

Before long we found ourselves in the most amusing and frustrating convoy of eco cars. All competing to use the least energy on the drive, which is fine in theory. But in practice it meant these guys would do 30 mph on the flat (in a 60) and when they hit a hill they were doing 20 (not wanting to use the throttle). It was funny to start with but that wore off.

We even saw drivers wiping the inside of their windscreens, because they wouldn’t use their screen demist (we assumed). We had no such problems, the air inside the Nemesis was the same as the air outside (v cold)….

We saw our chance on a long straight and blew off a convoy of eco cars – blimey the Nemesis can accelerate, I was well off the throttle before we reached the lead car…….

Although I can see why the RAC set this event up based on a challenge of efficiency (I think the petrol based cars had to use less than one gallon for example) – I actually think this is the anti message – Eco cars that are not fast or fun, (and if you meet one on the road it’ll be a pain in the arse) but they are economical – it’s the worst possible message, just re enforces the stereotype.

My suggestion for next year would be a balanced approach that requires some semblance of normal road speed and economy – much more of a challenge.

Anyway we got through some hideous traffic and made our way to Regent Street for the line up. And we were mobbed. The Nemesis kind of stole the show. That was fab.

So here we are three weeks later. I just charged the car last night and it was truly plug and play – no laptops needed – just pulled the old three pin plug out of the flap at the back, and that was it – chuffed about that…..

We’re still waiting for the fast charger though, it’s two months overdue now. But we’ve been busy with CAD and have ‘packaged’ the fast charger to fit in the boot – so that all we’ll need for a super fast charge, is a three phase supply. We’ll have no hardware compatibility issues.

After we get the next few weeks of publicity out of the way we’ll draw up plans for the speed record run and for the endurance run – Land’s End to John O Groats, which we’re going to aim to do in less than one day (less than 24hours). That should be a hoot. More on all of that later.

Cheers.

^{Video production: TWA Productions}

A day at Bruntingthorpe

Two weeks ago now we took the Nemesis to Bruntingthorpe, for it’s first real track day.

We had two purposes, to test safety followed by speed.

The safety aspect was about the stability of the car in the event that one of the motors or belts suddenly quit – having separate rear drives means we have the potential for some considerable torque steer in the wrong circumstances.

So our test pilot took the car down the track at increasing speeds, while the co pilot threw a switch – to disable one motor. The car has a system that responds to the loss of drive on one wheel, we needed to know if it was responding fast enough.

The results were good. In a straight line the impact of losing one motor, even at speeds well in excess of 100mph, was very slight (on the steering).

Later in the day we went on to try the same thing driving hard round bends, and eventually we found the limit and spun the car – but the circumstances it took to pull this off were a long way from real road conditions.

Before that though (while we still had plenty of battery) we did some speed tests…….

Results as follows –

Not bad for our first real test. We reckon the motors are spinning about 10% less fast than they could and we think there’s some torque limit applied by software – because we just can’t spin the wheels…..

We’re looking at both of these and confident there’s quite a bit more in the car yet. Top end and 0 to 100.

While we do that, the car is finally off to the paint shop, we’re packaging a fast charger to fit in the boot (for some distance work) and getting ready to launch on the road in October.

So this is the penultimate episode, our next one should take us right up to the launch.

Finally we’re almost there. It’s a good place to be.

Cheers.

PS – In what must be a sign of the times – there were more EVs and Hybrids on test the day we were at Bruntingthorpe than there were conventional ones. Roll on the day.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

Is it a Nemesis?

It finally happened. Last Monday on a windswept old airfield in Norfolk, we got the wind car out of the workshop and took it for its first spin on tarmac.

Not entirely without a little drama mind you – the car barely being able to climb the transporter loading ramp at full throttle was a challenging start to the day… but we quickly enough adjusted the bugs out of that and it flew, really flew.

The acceleration is astonishing. I had a run up and down with John Miles (ex Lotus F1 man) at the wheel – OMG! If you’ve ever been on the Oblivion at Alton Towers, that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach as you go over the edge and rush groundward – that was exactly the feeling, and it was relentless.

There’s no power build up, no power curve – it’s on full (especially when John’s driving), and it stays on – until the throttle comes off (and then the brakes burn… ) It’s incredible.

We clocked over 100mph, accidentally, (I mean it wasn’t a speed trial) just running up and down a few hundred metre stretch. And we didn’t spin a wheel, we burnt nothing – not even rubber, more on that later.

The big surprise of the day was the noise – we reckon part Stuka dive bomber and part supercharger, don’t know how well it will come out on film, but this car definitely is not quiet. And I really like the noise it makes.

That takes care of one of Mr Clarkson’s favourite EV ‘worries’ (bless).

Our attempt to test it more fully at Snetterton later the same day was (madly) rained off, as you’ll see in the video. But we’ll be back there in a week or so. By which time we’ll have upgraded the standard brakes (which we cooked) and made some small suspension tweaks. I’m expecting it to be incredibly quick.

The big question will really be how long we can drive it for – that we can’t be sure of.

All the time and care our guys have put into the design and build of this car really is starting to show – I mean to perform ‘straight out of the box’ like this is a real feat. I’m impressed.

It looks and sounds awesome and it goes like hell.

Looking at it and having driven it I really am thinking it suits the name Nemesis.

Very much so.

Cheers.

ETA: This video (and all the others) is also available on Youtube for your embedding pleasure etc.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

This months highlights are;

Meeting the Sun’s environment correspondent – yes seriously. They’ve not had one very long but they do have one and he is serious about it – and:

That amazing machine at Leeds University – the one that looks like it belongs on a Sci Fi film, in fact I’m sure I’ve seen versions of it, recreating humans from DNA samples… In our case we used to make a ‘gear lever assembly’.

As you’ll see here we’re getting close to the end game now, in fact I’m ready to predict that episode 10 of 6 will see me driving the Wind Car for the first time… !

The thing that’s been holding us up this past month or so is the Battery Management System (BMS), in case you wondered. The solution we were chasing kind of fell apart a few weeks ago and we had to hunt around for some new technology. Bit scary this late in the day…

But we’re very much back on track now having found exactly what we need from Linear Technology. These guys went above and beyond by expressing us a bunch of pre production chips and a board, that’s been a massive help. Thank you.

Returning to the question of a name, not sure if this one came up before, but in an e-mail last week I made a quick ref to the e bird (easier to type than wind car), and I kind of liked it. Any thoughts on that welcome.

Other than that current front runners are still Zero, Hurukan and Zephyr.

I’m off to Norfolk the week after next to shoot episode 10 and, hopefully, actually get to drive it – that’s a pretty exciting prospect after all this time and effort.

Hope you enjoy the vid.

Cheers.

PS – This just in – been challenged to a drag race with an RAF Tornado – can’t turn that down, racing for pink slips I hope, winner keeps all… More on this later.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

The first thing I should say here is that this isn’t the last episode of our little video series – it can’t be – we just haven’t finished yet. So expect Episodes 7 and probably 8 of 6 before long…

Second thing to say is I’ve got a new idea for a name. I’m quite taken with it.

The Mojo.

Keen to hear views and feelings on that. I like Zero, but as many people here have pointed out, it’s appearing on cars all over the place, in one form or another.

And Mojo (to me) is less technical, less hard maybe (less macho Damon?… ) and more fun.

So the Ecotricity Mojo – tell me what you all think.

Third thing to say is I went to Norfolk the other week to see the car and although the drives train bits weren’t installed as hoped, it was an exciting visit. It seems that the motors arrived quite a bit bigger than the manufacturers spec and we’re having to adjust the transmission to fit them in (that’s a euphemism BTW… ). That’s been the main hold up anyhow.

Still we’re making good progress, nailing a bunch of issues and having fun in the process.

What more could you ask for.

That’s it. Cheers.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

Thanks to everybody for that massive response to the last video posting on the wind car. And some more great names rolling in. I’m going to reply globally here if that’s OK.

Couple of people raised valid issues/questions – why aren’t we making a family car for example, or transforming a Prius (nice idea) – and haven’t Tesla already proven the EV sportscar thing?

The answer to all these lies in two parts, timing and my nature.

With regards timing, when this project was first conceived I’d never heard of Tesla and couldn’t find an electric sportscar anywhere, other than concepts (and I did look). To get one I was going to have to build one. Things moved on from there.

As for my nature, I like sportscars – they’re fun. It seemed like the ideal place to start, especially because I think it’s important that being green shouldn’t all be about sacrifice – to engage a bigger audience we need to show that cutting carbon and living more sustainably can be done and can still be a lot of fun. Sportscars turn heads and grab media attention – so I chose that route.

I don’t think Tesla have really proven this concept yet BTW, Top Gear may have been harsh, even manipulative with the imagery, but the serious flaws were real. And of course Tesla are not the only people pursuing this dream right now anyhow. The Lightning looks really good.

The more the merrier I say. We can’t be sure of the success or survival of any car company in these times – especially those trying to bring EV’s to market.

I accept that a family car would have more practical value, I’m not sure if it would have more impact though and that’s what we’re trying to achieve first and foremost. Plus we know this car will cost a lot and high cost is easier to justify if you have a more exotic car – think Lamborghini for example.

And maybe this will be the car that changes hearts and minds at Top Gear. That’s a prize in itself. Love them or loathe them (or just be amused by them), these guys are opinion formers.

On the naming front I’m grateful for all the new names and for the pointers to other cars called Zero. The Italian one looks quite cool, thanks Greenmotor.

I’m still torn.

Anyway, hope you enjoy episode 5 of our video series, things are moving a pace now.

I’m off to Norfolk this week to hook up with the team and shoot the next episode.

Expecting to see the batteries, motors and transmission all installed, have to say I’m more than a little excited by that.

Cheers.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

Good vid this one, all looks very industrial over there in Norfolk – and stuff is starting to come together.

I’m thinking it’s about time to come up with a name, and I’ve come up with a short list.

First thanks to everybody that sent suggestions, I enjoyed and appreciated them all, very much.

The short list I’ve come up with, and the reasons for each, are as follows:

Zero – Short version of the Zero C suggestion, has a certain neatness about it and many interpretations.  WW2 Japanese fighter of course.  Also a typical car has a badge announcing it’s cubic capacity, valve and/or turbo numbers  – Zero all of this in our case.  And Zero combustion/carbon.  And it has a nice ring to it.  The Zero.

Nemesis – Darker altogether and spawned from my traveller days when 2000 AD (the comic) was a cult read – anyone familiar with that will know the nemesis character.  Pretty awesome.  And Nemesis to the ICE car industry is exactly what EVs and WEVs are going to be, IMO.  Like this one for the dark side.  The Nemesis.

Storm – Weather inspired (not X men… ), toyed with Tornado and Hurricane, both of which I like, but feel that Storm is more understated but still evocative.  This is after all a weather driven car.  The Storm.

I’d love to hear what you all think.  Time to name the Wind Powered Car.

Cheers.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

You can see the body really starting to take shape here, and hear Peter talk about ‘toughening up’ of the look, from his original.

We’ve ‘placed’ all the parts within the car now and began machining/producing some of the bigger components, like the transmission.

And the batteries have arrived. Crazy thing about that was, to travel by ship they needed to be in their own 40 foot container, for safety reasons – but it was OK to stick them in the hold of a Jumbo jet, as they are… Not sure how that works!

Hope you enjoy the vid.

Cheers.

But it occurred to me – there’s an assumption frequently made that riding a bike is for free.  And it’s not.  You have to power the bike, it’s human power but that’s not free – we need food to do work.

The rates at which we burn calories and therefore food are pretty well established for various activities – resting, walking, running for example – as are the carbon impacts of food and therefore of the calories we use.

Typical daily calorie requirements are also well established.   And if you up your activity level you up your need to eat – it’s that simple.

Easy enough then to take a closer look at just how many more calories it takes to ride a bike, and what additional carbon impact comes from that – compared to the calorie intake required to drive a wind powered car instead.

It might not be surprising to find that driving a wind powered car is actually better in terms of CO₂ impact than riding a bike – after all wind power is zero carbon (the embedded energy in a windmill is repaid in about six months of operation – after that it’s all carbon free) – the assumption though has been that biking is zero carbon too, but it ain’t.

Biking requires 40 additional calories per mile – or 400 additional calories for a ten mile trip.

Using some typical food carbon footprints and assuming ten miles a day for a year you get a total annual impact of 333kg CO₂ – from riding the bike.

This is over and above the normal food impact – which, based on a mixed diet of 2,400 calories a day (for example) would be responsible for 2 tonnes of CO₂ a year – veggies and vegans will do better than that of course.

Driving a wind powered car on the other hand requires 100 calories an hour (to power the driver), which is roughly 4 calories per mile (assuming average 30 mph) this produces 76g of CO₂ for a ten mile stint and a total of 28kg of CO₂ for that 10 miles a day for a year.

The difference is 0.3 tonnes CO₂ per year.  The wind car is one third of a tonne of CO₂ better than the bike…!

Like I say not surprising that wind cars win if you accept that wind power is zero carbon and biking requires more food than not biking.

But the big surprise in all of this, and perhaps the bit that makes it worth sharing – is that an electric car powered by the grid as it is, actually emits only ever so slightly more carbon a year than biking the equivalent distance.

A grid powered electric car travelling 5000 miles per MWh of electricity will produce 94g CO₂ per mile (including the drivers contribution), that’s 342kg per year of CO₂ for the 10 mile a day trip.   Only 9kg of CO₂ per year more than cycling.  And what’s 9kg out of one third of a tonne?

This is counter intuitive I think.

Biking isn’t so obviously squeaky green as it’s assumed to be – it has a carbon footprint virtually equal to grid powered electric cars – that’s a shock to me.  The reason for that is probably that the human body is not the most efficient user of fuel, whereas electric motors hit the high 90 percents.  And even the grid manages around 50% fuel efficiency.

No embedded carbon in the car or bike (or food chain) has been taken into account here of course – just straight use of each.

It might be interesting to look at embedded levels of CO₂ in cars and bikes and calculate how many years it would take for a wind powered car to……

Any volunteers?

Cheers.

PS – A petrol car doing the same 10 miles a day would emit over 1.2Tonnes of CO₂ in a year – about four times that of the grid EV or Bike – and 45 times that of the Wind EV.

The ranges made possible by new batteries seem very practical, when looked at against current car use patterns refuelling appears to be possible, even desirable, without the need for garages. And the National Grid appears readily able to accommodate the switch from oil to electricity for our entire car fleet.

So far so good.

Justin Noe raised a good point the other week, probably the next big practical question – is there enough Lithium in the world for us all to have EVs?

Justin quotes an article by a Michael C who says there isn’t enough, he doesn’t offer any numbers to support that view though – so we took a look, this is what we found…

Lithium is the 33rd most abundant element in the Earth’s crust – it makes up about 0.0007% which doesn’t sound a lot when compared to Iron’s 5% and magnesium’s 2%, but it may still be enough. How much is 0.0007% in metric tones?

According to Keith Evans, a geologist who’s been working on and writing about lithium reserves for decades, there are 28.4 Million Tonnes of Lithium metal in the ground. Let’s assume he knows his stuff.

That’s (apparently) equivalent to roughly 150 Million Tonnes of Lithium Carbonate – the stuff that goes into ‘Lithium batteries’.

According to William Tahil, the guy who seems to have kicked the lithium shortage debate, a typical Hybrid EV will need 16kg of Lithium Carbonate in it’s batteries. Let’s assume that a pure EV needs four times as much.

There are 900 Million cars in the world and so we’d need 58 million tonnes of lithium carbonate to power them all as pure EV’s with Lithium batteries.

That’s a little over one third of global reserves. Clearly enough to go round with some left over.

The world currently produces and consumes 16,000 Tonnes of Lithium metal a year, or 84,000 Tonnes of Lithium Carbonate (equivalent). And it produces 50 million new cars a year – this needs adding in to the equation.

Powering 900 million cars with Lithium Ion batteries, allowing for the additional 50 million cars a year and maintaining the current levels of demand for lithium in ceramics, drugs, aluminium smelting etc – would leave enough Lithium in the world to last another 28 years.

OK 28 years is not very long, but this assumes that Lithium reserves don’t increase as deposits become more economic as the price goes up – as with oil.

But the bigger factor is that Lithium is recyclable, unlike oil. Currently the USA recycles 98% of its car batteries whilst we in the UK recycle 90%.

If we assume that only 10% of those 50 million new cars need virgin lithium due to recycling old batteries then suddenly our reserves are going to last for over 200 years.

I don’t suppose that Lithium is the only game in town, to power EVs. The article Justin pointed out actually argued that super capacitors were ‘better’. They may or may not be one day, and EV’s will no doubt come with a range of technologies powering them – but there’s one thing we can be clear on;

If we relied 100% on Lithium, to ‘repower’ the world’s car fleet – we should have enough Lithium to do that and still ‘last’ for a couple of centuries.

And that’s a very (very) long way from the conclusion that there’s not enough in the world.