Motor vehicles are becoming a critical problem for society, being one of the primary contributors to noise and air pollution.
On the other hand, electric transport has advantages from emissions and health points of view. For this reason, there has been increasing interest in electric cars over the past years. Even governments worldwide are considering banning oil and diesel cars to favor them.
We find ourselves with a wide availability of electric cars, with Tesla leading the way over other entrenched brands. Prices are expected to be very similar to conventional cars by 2025. To achieve this ambitious goal, vehicle producers must rise to the challenge of achieving significant reductions in the high prices of batteries.
Batteries: a cornerstone of automotive progress
Batteries account for about a third of the price of an electric car, at least half of which is linked to their components. For this reason, companies have been set up to recover the core metals from the batteries of discarded portable devices and electric vehicles. Recycled materials will become a reliable, new source of batteries, becoming competition for mined metals, helping stabilize prices and reduce volatility caused by raw materials.
Thanks to lithium-ion batteries and the technologies employed in their construction, electric vehicle sales are expected to quadruple to 8.5 million vehicles sold, per year, in the next five years. This figure is expected to triple to 26 million per year by 2030.
The future of batteries
The world of battery manufacturing, essential for the democratization of the electric car, has experienced an unprecedented boom marked by impressive advances, evidencing how scientific research has succeeded in creating prototypes that no one could have imagined in the 1970s.
The electric car opened up a horizon far from fossil fuels and has begun to threaten other ecosystems due to the extraction of the fundamental component of batteries, lithium, leading us to the next challenge facing the electric car.
Materials such as cobalt and lithium hinder the battery recycling process, which has led manufacturers to look for ways to improve the recycling process. As a result, significant techniques have been found that promise greater autonomy, lower cost, and longer life.
One of the most recent advances is the solid-state battery, a technology that surpasses lithium ion in many aspects. Its life cycle is significantly extended. Moreover, it does not require cobalt, nickel, or manganese for its manufacture, which would facilitate its subsequent recycling.
Another future strategy under development is an electric car model with batteries made from economies of scale that, in addition to competing on price, will improve its autonomy.
The paradigm shift in the automotive world
According to experts, if we compare these gasoline or diesel cars, they win out for reasons of design and construction. The engine of electric vehicles is considerably more basic than an internal combustion engine. Therefore, failure is less likely, and its cost is much lower. According to the director of ASETRA, customers “would probably save between 30 and 40% on the servicing of their cars”.
The automotive world is facing multiple challenges that allow it to adapt to the needs of both the consumer and the environment. At Fellow Funders, we support this paradigm shift and the companies gradually adapting to this new world. In addition, we collaborate with companies dedicated to this sector. We recently helped the Easy Charger charging network station to obtain financing, and now we are launching the Full&Fast project. If electric cars are to change the world of mobility, we don’t want to be left behind.
