The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations

by Daniel Yergin

hundred miles or more on a charge costs around $11,000, which is expensive and not yet competitive without subsidies. It is thought that at around $100 per kilowatt-hour, the battery would be competitive with the internal combustion engine. The recent MIT study on mobility posits that the gap may not be closed until 2030.28 There is much debate as to how much further these costs can come down without technical breakthroughs. One path is through greater scale in manufacturing, and new factories are being added at impressive rates. But there are also concerns around the supply chain of some battery materials, which has added to the uncertainty over future costs. Under an aggressive scenario, EV demand for lithium would rise 1,800 percent by 2030 and would represent about 85 percent of total world demand. Demand for cobalt, another essential element in batteries, would rise 1,400 percent. More than 50 percent of global cobalt supply comes from one province, Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Overall, the performance required of batteries in cars means that these materials will have to be of the correct, high-grade specifications, adding potential bottlenecks to the supply chain. China has already staked out a key position in these industries.29 At the same time, the potential scale of the market is stimulating research aimed at improving and developing new battery technologies.30 An electric car eliminates the need to go to the gas station, but it does require ...