Even if we can't get Cobalt to 0% (and there is plenty of research into other battery composites happening right now), the problems with Cobalt seem less to do with scarcity and a lot more to do with geopolitics (Cobalt is primarily sourced today as byproduct extracts of mines for minerals such as nickel in countries like Columbia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo). There's even indications that cobalt could be recycled from existing battery composites (as we do today already for lithium), but no economic incentive to do such because it isn't scarce enough to try.
Even if we can't get Cobalt to 0% (and there is plenty of research into other battery composites happening right now), the problems with Cobalt seem less to do with scarcity and a lot more to do with geopolitics (Cobalt is primarily sourced today as byproduct extracts of mines for minerals such as nickel in countries like Columbia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo). There's even indications that cobalt could be recycled from existing battery composites (as we do today already for lithium), but no economic incentive to do such because it isn't scarce enough to try.