What price must gasoline hit before consumers accept electric cars?
$4.50 a gallon, according to Harvard…
Last week, researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School announced their findings in the report, “Will Electric Cars Transform the U.S. Vehicle Market?”
In addition to the price of gasoline, researchers found that in order for Americans to buy electric cars, those cars must be competitive with conventional vehicles on cost, range, and fueling convenience.
I couldn’t agree more.
And the path to competitiveness will all boil down to one thing: batteries.
464% in Less Than One Year
Much of the high price associated with electric cars can be attributed to the high cost of batteries. Batteries are actually the most expensive components of electric cars.
But new battery technology being developed today will offer much cheaper production costs in the very near future.
And advanced battery technologies that will be integrated in less than ten years will also allow for increased range. With that range comes the ability to travel longer distances between charging stations.
All of this stuff is coming, thanks to an enormous amount of research and development being done using various battery chemistries and materials.
Now, we’ve been writing about the materials angle for years. From lithium to a handful of rare earths, we’ve jumped on every possible opportunity that’s come along.
You may even remember back in 2010, when I first told you about a new rare earth play called Molycorp (NYSE: MCP).
This was before the company had even gone public. And you can see how that one turned out:
Molycorp catapulted more than 464% in less than a year. Not bad.
But that’s nothing compared to what I’m going to tell you about today.
Billions in Beryllium
To be honest, when I first started sniffing around the electric vehicle sector back in 2005, I didn’t know much about the materials angle. In fact, the most I knew of lithium and molybdenum was their associated symbols on the periodic table of elements.
Of course, once I made the profit connection, I didn’t waste any time learning about this stuff.
And certainly my crash course in materials has helped me pass along dozens of opportunities to readers. It even helped me learn about other opportunities in rare earths and rare metals that are not associated with electric vehicles, although I must admit it was my colleague Nick Hodge who turned me on to my latest rare metals play…
It’s called beryllium, and I’m sure you’ve read plenty about it from Nick, so I won’t rehash the obvious.
What I will tell you is this: Although I’m personally not a fan of adding any more nuclear to our energy mix, I’m not so naïve to ignore the fact that even with Germany and Japan potentially out of the nuclear game, nuclear is not going the way of the typewriter.
In fact because of the Fukushima catastrophe, the nuclear industry is tripping over itself trying to find new technologies that offer “safer” nuclear power production.
Beryllium, my friends, is going to make this happen.
And in about a week or two, Nick’s going to share with you some of his intel from a recent meeting he had with a nuclear insider.
I’ve already seen it. And I can assure you this is going to be one of Energy and Capital‘s biggest winners ever.
It’ll make the 464% gain we saw on Molycorp look like peanuts.
To a new way of life, and a new generation of wealth…
Jeff Siegel
Editor, Energy and Capital
