EVs – Silver to Play a Minor or Major Role?

Almost everyone now knows the term EV means electric vehicle. Elon Musk has brought about massive attention to electric vehicles. But it wasn’t an easy ride. Tesla was not an overnight success. The company was founded in 2003 by two Silicon Valley engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who wanted to prove that “electric vehicles can be better, quicker and more fun to drive than gasoline cars.”

The seeds of the company go back to 1990 when Tarpenning met Eberhard, who at that time was an engineer at Wyse Technology, and they became good friends. The two had much in common, including a passion for starting companies; one that they soon launched was NuvoMedia, which released the Rocket eBook in 1998.

Elon, being the visionary, saw the potential and bought the company. Recently, Mr. Musk has stated he might be interested in buying a mining company. Why? Because EVs take massive amounts of minerals, everything from Rare Earths to silver.

Silver is an essential part of electric car parts; silver is used in the EV manufacturing process because of its chemical properties. Silver has a very high corrosion resistance (important for battery making, which involves the use of corrosive acids), and is also a stellar conductor of electricity.

Some silver bugs have overstated the case for silver needed as the world is asked to shift to EVs. First, car manufacturers use up to 55 million ounces of silver per year (that’s over 3 million pounds!). It’s estimated that hybrid vehicles use anywhere from 18 to 34 grams of silver per vehicle. But EV’s need as much as 25-50 grams for each vehicle.

Some of the key features in EVs that require silver for conducting purposes include an EV’s infotainment system, electric power steering, and even safety features such as automatic braking and airbags.

The renewable energy industry might even affect the price of silver as demand increases. It’s predicted that there will be over 120 million EVs on our national highways by the year 2030, which means that carmakers will start becoming more conscious of the way they use silver in manufacturing, which is ongoing.

As an aside, solar uses about 100 million ounces of silver per year. However, solar panels are at least twice as efficient as they were in the year 2000. If this “thrifting” (continual improvement) of silver had not taken place, the silver market would be in a very serious deficit by now.

Forward looking investors have asked me, Do electric vehicles make silver the investment of the decade?

Before we look at silver as an investment and its potential, we need to understand the EV market better. The real story on EVs is batteries. What is so interesting about batteries is the fact that nothing comes close to silver as far as a battery is concerned! Silver oxide acts as the positive electrode and zinc the negative electrode. Therefore, it is also called a “silver-zinc battery.” This battery has many advantages compared to its equivalents. It is much more durable, has a very high energy-to-weight ratio, and can tolerate high current loads.

Silver oxide battery is considered one of the best batteries if you must compare it with other types of batteries. You must prefer a silver oxide battery over an alkaline battery due to its major features and better use.

The high energy density of silver oxide batteries attracted interest from a range of industries, particularly military and aerospace. According to the Silver Institute, the military and aerospace utilized silver-zinc in a range of applications and undertook a considerable amount of research and development to further develop the technology.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) became increasingly involved in the development of a rechargeable version of silver-zinc. While NASA was ultimately not able to improve on the most used rechargeable nickel-cadmium technology at the time, their R&D efforts led to high density silver-zinc cells, one-third of the size of anything else available.

Even though a silver-based battery is superior in many ways, it will not be used as the power basis for EVs. The use currency is Lithium and in fact not the most efficient lithium battery available, due to cost.

The market for silver-based batteries remains singleuse silver oxide button cell batteries in devices such

With this potential range, and a capacity to endure 1,000 cycles, this new solid-state cell could make a car last for 800,000 km (497,000 mi) as a standard.

as quartz watches, hearing aids, and medical applications. Lithium-based batteries can be prone to leakage and, in rare cases, thermal runaway, which can cause lithium-ion batteries to catch fire. Under normal conditions of use, silver oxide batteries are non-toxic.

However, before we dismiss silver totally as the power source for EVs we need to inform our readers that some researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) and the Samsung R&D Institute Japan (SRJ) have used a very thin silvercarbon film (Ag-C) in a prototype pouch cell. This announcement was made in 2020.

We are guessing that this design is probably the adequate format for a solid-state battery.

The silver-carbon film is extremely thin. It was crucial to make the anode thinner and to increase energy density. Anyway, the silver-carbon film has the purpose of preventing dendrite formation. Dendrites are needle-like crystals that form on anodes and damage the battery.

Another significant advantage the Ag-C film offered relates to the size of the cell, which is around 50 percent smaller in terms of volume than an equivalent lithium-ion battery. Less volume means less weight. Weight is a key factor in all EVs! Anytime weight can be reduced the performance and range improve.

The researchers claim that an EV with such batteries could have a range of 800 km (497 mi). It is not clear if it could reach that with a battery pack equivalent in size to that used by a Tesla, for example, or with a smaller one. car last for 800,000 km (497,000 mi) as a standard.

In March of 2022, Samsung SDI announced they had started building a new pilot assembly line in South Korea that’ll produce the first prototypes of its solid state batteries. At this point, it’s too early to tell how soon Samsung or any of the other battery manufacturers will put their designs into full-scale production for an EV. However, the pace at which the tech is developing, we expect to see solid state batteries in electric cars by the end of this decade in 2030.

Initially, solid state battery powered EVs could be more expensive to buy than those with conventional batteries. Other than Samsung SDI, battery manufacturers such as QuantumScape and even carmakers such as Toyota and Dongfeng Motor are working on the upcoming tech. This means that future EVs will get better range than we see today, and charging times are likely to improve as well.

The bottom line is that EV’s use roughly twice the amount of silver that an internal combustion engine uses without using silver-based batteries as the power source. If the Samsung technology proves itself and it moves into EV’s around 2030, you might consider the value of silver for our high-tech world, versus the fact silver is at an inflation adjusted low for the past thousand years.

Wouldn’t it make a lot of sense to have the best conductor of electricity (silver) power your new EV? Further, assuming recycling is possible, driving a car that increases in value because the batteries are increasing in value could prove profitable.

David Morgan is the publisher of the Morgan Report, found at www. TheMorganReport.com. This website offers three levels of service for investors in the resource sector. Although considered a leading voice in the silver industry, TMR focuses on the entire sector having been first in rare earths, cobalt, and cyanide free recycling. Visit the About tab on the website and view The Four Horsemen film for free. This documentary is must viewing for people during these fast changing times.

With this potential range, and a capacity to endure 1,000 cycles, this new solid-state cell could make a