Copper demand from auto industry expected to double as EVs ramp up
April 14, 2021
By Paul Homewood
There are major concerns about supplies of cobalt and lithium in our new electric car world. But another problem could arise with copper:
Projections by the Committee on Climate Change consistently assume that EVs come down in price below conventional vehicles, as economies of scale bite.
However there has been no sign of this so far, hence the need for obscene taxpayer subsidies. Given potential shortages of minerals, price cuts look further away than ever.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
There’s also this from press release from the Natural History Museum from 2019:
“Leading scientists set out resource challenge of meeting net zero emissions in the UK by 2050”
The challenges set out in the letter are:
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html
‘EVs come down in price below conventional vehicles, as economies of scale bite.’
Gross speculation.
Plus, price ≠ cost.
20kg of copper for the average light ICE vehicle seems a bit high. I would guess 5kg in alternator and wiring harness but could be wrong. What else is copper in a car?
Starter motor, blower motor, windshield wiper motor, power window motors, engine cooling fans, relays, solenoids. Also various alloys.
Track second hand prices for the Nissan Leaf (£30K) and you will see depreciation at £5000 a year for the first three years until battery life anxiety clicks in. Tory Red Wallers will love that
Leasing would cost a lot less than £5k per year, with no battery replacement worries.
And if you think petro products are inherently unstable in price and supply, get a load of where most of the world’s copper comes from.
Related: If you are in the Salt Lake City area, go take a look at Bingham Canyon/Kennecott Copper Mine. Man’s biggest hole.
Also the bodywork of EVs is largely plastic derived. Plastics are cheap today because they are a byproduct of the oil industry. As investment in oil reduces and refineries close, then plastics will get more expensive due to ‘loss’ of economies of scale.
How about the demand for copper for electricity cables, transformers and generator windings? We could at a pinch use aluminium for cables, but they have to be much thicker to carry the current.
https://www.carsondunlop.com/training/resources/the-true-story-behind-aluminum-wiring-part-one/
Peak copper?
Copper is a finite resource. Shouldn’t we save some – for the children?
There continue to be many question marks over electrical vehicles. The initial cost, their performance, and their use of expensive and rare elements. It wasn’t so long ago that a Honda engineer told me that they are not convinced that the IC engine is about to be replaced.
Interesting times ahead.
Hitherto, the costs and implications of the insane transformation from cheap fossil fuel reliables to expensive, (but, in reality, non-green) unreliables in the West has been hidden or deliberately obscured from the taxpayers who fund such policies. The billions wasted over the past 50 years of climate alarmism have made not a jot of difference to the natural rise in global co2 emissions from all sources, nor the climate.
With the intended transformations required to meet ‘net zero’ already overdue, the reality of alarmist ambition will soon crash headlong in to the reality of a surly populous who, frankly, will be reluctant to ditch warm houses, cheap and reliable private means of transport and a decent meal for ridiculously expensive alarmist virtue signalling. Particularly when it becomes clear that, rather than global warming that the great unwashed have been terrified about through relentless government and media inspired fear campaigns, it is perfectly natural global cooling that comes about over the next decade or so, as many respected, non compromised, atmospheric scientists have been warning. With harsher winters and ruined harvests symptomatic of a cooling period it’s going to be a big ask for any politician to convince the public that man made global warming is ‘a thing’ unless their persuasion is accompanied by the cosh and the jackboot. The way that, so called, liberal democracies in the West have embraced Chinese style lockdown dictatorship policies does not give one confidence that similar policies won’t be utilised in the very near future to enforce compliance with current AGW kamikaze theories.