Lithium

Third of the world's supply of lithium is in a salt-flats aquifer there

Britain is returning to ancient mines on its southwestern tip to secure a slice of the global electric car revolution. The English county of Cornwall and the surrounding area boast one of the world's largest tin deposits.

Lithium battery technology company Alternet Systems announced Tuesday the formation of a new company that will build an electric motorcycle based on the classic 1938 BMW R71 motorcycle with sidecar used by German troops during World War II and by Steve McQueen to outrun them in the 1963 film "The Great Escape."

Partners include BMW, Daimler, Jaguar Land Rover, Volkswagen, Volvo, Ford, Honda and Toyota.

Although lithium is plentiful, the problem is ensuring there is enough capacity to process it.

Tesla is reportedly in talks to widen its supply chain for lithium-ion batteries. Those 500,000 EVs won't build themselves in 2018.

Tesla Motors may be enlisting more firms to complement Panasonic's efforts to meet lithium-ion battery demand.

Tesla may or may not have reached an agreement for lithium procurement from northern Mexico.

It's one thing for the Big 3 to get tires and engine parts from cities along the US Rust Belt. It's another thing altogether, though, for Tesla Motors to source far more esoteric materials like graphite, cobalt and lithium from Canada and the northern US. But that's what the California-based company has in mind, and it's all in the name of environmental friendliness and cost, Bloomberg News says.

It's been quite a while since we've heard anything from Sakti3, the Ann Arbor-based battery company that has been working on next-generation solid state lithium batteries for many years. Heck, even the company's website doesn't have any news that isn't a year old. Thankfully, our friend Jim Motavalli, who blogs for Car Talk, recently talked to Sakti3's Ann Marie Sastry on the eve of her company being named an affiliate of the US Department of Energy's Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JC

While the dark cloud that was the Better Place bankruptcy may have had a silver lining for some in Israel, in the US that cumulonimbus is wrapped with lithium. Or, more precisely, lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4) with a sprinkling of lithium nickel oxide (LiNiO2). That's because a boat load of batteries intended for those erstwhile BP swapping stations have found their way across the Atlantic and into the clutches of our friends over at EVTV.

Lithium-ion batteries have two big hurdles to climb if they're going to power millions of plug-in vehicles – they're too expensive and their reliability has been called to question. For next-gen li-ion batteries to make it, there had better be a cheap and plentiful component. How about rice husks?

If the US would like to stop importing 80 percent of its lithium, mainly from China, and if Bolivian sources don't come through, it looks like there is a big domestic opportunity: Wyoming. Having an ample domestic supply would bring down the price of lithium, which could mean electric vehicles would become more cost competitive.

Add UK-based Frost & Sullivan as the latest research firm to forecast a big jump in lithium-ion battery sales, implying that a jump in plug-in vehicle sales is in the making.

Until another element is preferred or discovered, lithium will be the foundation for electric and hybrid vehicle batteries for the foreseeable future. It is an expensive part of the battery packs being installed and is keeping sticker prices fairly high. The price of lithium, the lightest metal, has jumped 35 percent in the past 18 months, according to Jonathan Lee, an analyst at Byron Capital Markets in Toronto.

Yep, that ought to do it.

After four years of partnering with Samsung SDI on lithium-ion battery production, Bosch apparently wants to go it alone.

Paranoia or well-founded fears?

Schoolhouse Rock taught us that three was the magic number. McKinsey says it's 250.

Tobacco Road? Try lithium.