Nice, i wonder how much envolvment he'll have.
And then there's the precious metals needed for the electronics in battery pack and motor control. No one ever talks about this kind of thing. There are already warnings about how gadget sales are having an impact on this area, adding more complicated electronics to every car in the world won't make it any better.
Thats becuase the grid isn't mainly renewable yet. As the grid gets greener, nothing will match. There's nothing wrong with searching for alternatives (especially as they can be used in other sectors) but its almsot certianly will never happen replace EV. As the years go on EV gets more and more deployed and more and more invested in. It is extremly unlikely that flywheel will ever be suiitable for small vehicles. The fact is its almsot a given EV will win(pretty much has allready, again read the long term policies and funding of most countries) and is the future. It will be next to impossible for anything to catch it up.
It doesnt matter if the processing is toxic or automated, it's what you get out at the end after its processed that we care about. So the fact it is 90% automated, really means nothing at all.
As for rare eart elements, they aren't so rare, we have thousands of years left, the few scaremongering reports, are that, scaremongering. And dont take intto account changing mining.
There's also several of these battery protoypes that use common and cheap elements.
If you read the 2050 EU transport roadmap. Then EU is planning to phase out all petrol cars from city centers by 2050. Not looking so good for hybrids.the majour oview, but it goes into a loot more details obviusly.
In 2030 electric vehicles will account for 50%.
V
By 2050:
cities to completely phase out petrol cars
shifting to rail or water 50% of all passenger and freight road transport currently making intercity journeys of more than 300km
airlines to increase their use of sustainable low-carbon fuels to 40%
shipping to cut 40% off its carbon emissions.
Reduce all transport co2 emmisions by 60%
In combination with that the energy 2050 roadmap. Expects electeical usage to double, a significant part of that is EVs.
High energy efficiency. Political commitment to very high energy savings; it includes e.g. more stringent minimum requirements for appliances and new buildings; high renovation rates of existing buildings; establishment of energy savings obligations on energy utilities. This leads to a decrease in energy demand of 41 % by 2050 as compared to the peaks in 2005–06.
Diversified supply technologies. No technology is preferred; all energy sources can compete on a market basis with no specific support measures. Decarbonisation is driven by carbon pricing assuming public acceptance of both nuclear and carbon capture and storage (CCS).
High renewable energy sources (RES). Strong support measures for RES leading to a very high share of RES in gross final energy consumption (75 % in 2050) and a share of RES in electricity consumption reaching 97 %.
Delayed CCS. Similar to the diversified supply technologies scenario but assuming that CCS is delayed, leading to higher shares for nuclear energy with decarbonisation driven by carbon prices rather than technology push.
Low nuclear. Similar to the diversified supply technologies scenario but assuming that no new nuclear (besides reactors currently under construction) is being built resulting in a higher penetration of CCS (around 32 % in power generation).