>> Nickel is scarce, and fairly expensive. <<

Not scarce. It's the 5th most common element on this planet and there are enough reserve/deposits out there - it's just that they need to be mined which is a multiyear undertaking (and polluting like all mining). And nickel is no more expensive than lithium. The price of lithium at the current market rate is higher than that of nickel, which makes LFP more expensive per Wh/kg.

>> LFP batteries don't use nickel or cobalt. That's a good thing. Iron mining has downsides too, but it's far more abundant. <<

LFP has a lot of shortcomings, and to name a few, in the context of this discussion:

1. LFP is a lithium-ion battery. Due to its low energy density, it requires a lot more lithium to achieve the same Wh as NCM8/9/A. That which in turn makes LFP more expensive when the prices of lithium is higher than that of nickel.

2. cost of LFP recycling is also much higher than that of NCM/A counterparts for two reasons: higher processing cost of the cathodes and lack of valuable metals recovered[1].

[1] Financial viability of electric vehicle lithium-ion battery recycling, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422...

>> We have no realistic way to mine enough cobalt and nickel to make a billion cars ..., <<

Why so much FUD? Are you a mainlander Chinese, or perhaps a Tesla fanboi?

>> We use nickel and cobalt in EV batteries so that rich and upper middle class people can have 20% more range <<

First, the industry trend is to minimize the use of cobalt -- the cutting edge high-nickel NCM8/9 batteries, which is already widely adopted in popular EVs such as the Ioniq5/F-150/EV6/etc, contain less than 10% and 5% of cobalt, respectively and they also have much higher energy density due to higher nickel content. There are also ultra-nickel lithium-ion batteries without any cobalt, NMX, already developed and would be available in a couple of years.

And no worries, when the South Korean battery trios bring up 300+GWh NCM8/9+/A battery production online around 2025-2026 in the US, LFP would lose much of price competitiveness, so your class dividing rhetoric isn't going to win much vote. GM already reported that their battery cost would drop to $87/Wh in 18 months (back in Feb 2023). The Chevy Bolts are already under $20K and made with NCMs batteries. But nice try though.

Now, we use NCM/A batteries b/c, in moving vehicles, the energy/weight ratio matters quite a bit. LFP's low energy density, weight and lower tolerance for high C made it unsuitable for EVs, but in other applications, such as stationary energy storage system (aka, ESS), until China spiked it up for EVs application not to long ago - which in turn came with a number of compromises. LFPs are still limited to mostly entry-level, low-range EVs under ~250 miles range (60KWh), but, beyond that, there are significant technical baggages and risks (and unknowns), for instance:

* LFP EVs must be charged to 100% full to recalibrate the BMS frequently to avoid misreading SOC/range, and, as we recently discovered, that in turn accelerates battery degradation. The short-term data we have from Tessie (via CleanWatt) -- also seems to be corroborated by Recurrent's battery life study -- reveal that LFPs in fact degrade twice as fast as non-LFP to 10% range loss, or 90% SOH in Tesla EVs[2].

* BYD likewise has dozens of fires every year with their trademarked blade LFP in PHEVs operating at 5+C.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suw20wPrbL0