Well, the covid/speculation shockwaves have affected many other goods, but I don't know any other asset that got to x15 in that timeframe. (maybe there are some others, I haven't tracked all of them tbh)

So I wonder if you can really rule out that the increase in demand for EV isn't the main factor in lithium's x15 price increase. And if it's the case, I don't see how battery prices could go down in the next decade, since increasing mining isn't spontaneous and demand is not going to decrease.

Solid state, Na based, grid scale non-Li batteries, improved (i.e. cheaper) recycling of battery metals.

There are a lot of reasons that would reduce the cost of batteries even if the mining+processing of Li didn't grow (which it will).

I'm definitely pro-EV. As soon as it's practical for us I'll get one. However, I do worry that there are so many dimensions to optimising EV batteries (degradation, fast charge / discharge, stability, temperature tolerance, weight, cubic volume and price) that we might not be able to find anything that really changes the game. By which I mean a doubling of capacity, so 200kwh easily in a car, by my maths that's what we need to keep a light van (3.5t say) busy for a whole shift. Or in my case to tow a caravan 300 miles.

The only thing preventing manufacturers from putting 200KWh in a full size van or truck is cost, and with battery cost reducing 90% per decade, that should not remain a barrier.

The cost drops of the last decade will likely not continue going forward. It is more likely that lithium ion batteries will end up kind of like Nickel-based rechargable batteries: a huge spurt in cost reduction as they become mainstream, then not much after that. Lithium ion chemistries have a few more cost reductions to go, but not another 90%.

Semiconductors spoiled us into thinking we could ride one technology idea down an exponential curve forever, but most technologies don't have that kind of progression. By the way, semiconductors didn't have that kind of progression either - chips from 10 years ago look very different than today's.

It's all about the experience curve. For every doubling in production, cost drops 10-25%. There are very few exceptions to this.

Nickel battery production has decreased as they're being replaced with Lithium batteries so they're no longer riding the experience curve.

Semiconductors have a relatively constant price per chip but a regularly decreasing price per transistor.

We need about 1000TWh for the clean energy transition, half for cars and half for the electrical. There might be better substitutes for the electrical grid, but cars are going to use something that looks a lot like a lithium-ion battery, like sodium ion.

So I figure we've got solid demand from our current 500GWh/year up until at least 32TWh/year or so, 6 doublings, which should lower the price by about 90%.

Look at the other side. Tesla's battery day announcement in 2021 promises 56% cost reductions in 4 years via 6 enhancements: silicon anodes, cobalt-free cathodes, dry electrode process, structural batteries, tabless electrodes, larger cells.

Only the dry electrode process is particularly innovative or risky, but the others still add considerable cost reductions. Not all of Tesla's innovations may pan out, but they're just one of many companies and Universities researching batteries, many of whom are more innovative than Tesla is.

I'm fully on board with you with Wright's law, but that's what we have some idea of demand for, but not what we can supply. Battery supply has a lot of constraints, and they will eventually lift, but not necessarily quickly.

Also, Tesla has a very spotty track record on predicting its own innovations (yes, even on battery design), so I wouldn't take that prediction too seriously.

It wasn’t a 15x price wing, but large commodity price swings aren’t that unusual. Oil briefly went negative due to COVID that’s larger than an infinite price swing.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DCOILWTICO/

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/20/investing/oil-prices-negative...

Not sure why you're being downvoted, but this is the right answer

You can't predict the markets.

It is difficult to predict markets fast, reliable and precisely enough to reliably beat them. It is certainly possible to predict markets and be good at it, people do it all the time

They have a lot of variability. It's the difference between predicting the weather and predicting the average weather (that is, the climate).

It's easy to predict the markets, just as it's easy to predict the weather.

I predict it will rain sometime in the next month at my address. I also predict that it will freeze hard in the same time period.

This is a useful prediction, given that I will be winterizing my yard today.

Making a prediction better than an expert's is hard. Useful predictions are often easy.

If my father in law decides to plant 1000 acres in wheat next year, he is making a prediction about the markets. Given the situation in Ukraine and with global climate, wheat prices are one of the most difficult to predict precisely. But he is a low cost producer compared to many, so he knows he is likely to make a profit whether the price is high or low. A precise prediction would be nice, but producers everywhere operate with imprecise but useful predictions all the time.

«Situation» in Ukraine is at mid-WWII level (1942), so plant the wheat. It will be tough to produce and export wheat in Ukraine for next two years at least.

If the war in Ukraine continues, oilseeds are the most profitable planting choice.