"Electric cars provide perhaps the best example of new, and enormous, material dependencies. **A typical lithium car battery weighing about 450 kilograms contains about 11 kilograms of lithium, nearly 14 kilograms of cobalt, 27 kilograms of nickel, more than 40 kilograms of copper, and 50 kilograms of graphite—as well as about 181 kilograms of steel, aluminum, and plastics**. Supplying these materials for a single vehicle requires processing about 40 tons of ores, and given the low concentration of many elements in their ores it necessitates extracting and processing about 225 tons of raw materials." ([Location 2043](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B08SGC3TD3&location=2043)) --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[electric-cars]], [[lithium]], [[cobalt]], [[nickel]], [[copper]], [[graphite]], [[steel]], [[aluminium]], [[plastics]], **Source** -- [[202412030828 - B - How the World Really Works]]