TAMPA, Fla — From the customizable features to the speed, it's safe to say Blair Johnson is "team Tesla."
"Love this car," he said.
Well...for the most part.
"My only change is that it kinda looks like an egg," Johnson said.
But shape aside, he told ABC Action News that he made the switch to an electric vehicle eight months ago because of gas.
"I was driving a Jeep with a four-inch lift, 37-inch tires, and I switched careers. And I did the math, and it's cheaper for me to get the tesla and get the new car payment than it was to get gas," Johnson said.
Johnson said the savings are easily $50-100 a month for him.
And he's not alone. According to the International Energy Agency, Johnson is one of the millions of people who bought an electric vehicle in the last year.
And the agency expects that this trend will continue to ramp up over the next 10 years.
But Florida Gulf Coast University Finance professor Dr. Tom Smythe told us that this growth comes with some growing pains for a key component of electric vehicle production.
"Lithium prices have exploded over the last 9-12 months," he said, "And as long as that's the case, right now, the primary source of energy for those vehicles is lithium batteries. By definition, there is a limited supply, and therefore prices are rising," Dr. Smythe said.
To put it in perspective, between 2010 and 2021, the price of lithium essentially tripled from about $5,000 per metric ton to about $17,000 — and it's still climbing.
And if unchecked, he said this trend could lead to sticker shock for electric vehicle owners looking to replace their batteries down the line.
"I think that's when consumers may start to feel the pinch. Especially if we don't open up lithium production," Dr. Smythe said.
And fixing the problem comes with its own challenges.
FGCU professor and mining expert Dr. Thomas Missimer— said the largest deposits of lithium for those batteries are often found in countries that are politically unstable—making mining and exporting it tricky.
"85 percent of the reserves on the planet are really in three countries, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile," he said.
And stateside, mining lithium often comes with environmental restrictions.
"For example, there's a recent discovery of 11 million metric tons in Maine, but it's never going to be mined because of the restrictions of mining in that state," Dr. Missimer said.
So what happens next? Well, Dr. Missimer said a possible solution all but surrounds the state of Florida.
'"If we look at the lithium in the oceans, there's 5,000 times more lithium in the oceans than the crust of the earth."
And he added that the fix could be as simple as pulling lithium from the wastewater at plants that turn saltwater into drinkable water.
"Some of my colleagues in the middle east have come up with a very innovative method for extraction, taking it out of the effluent at desalination plants which is more concentrated, about twice that of seawater," he said.
He's also submitted his own proposed fix to the federal government.
And adds that he can't stress the dire nature of things enough as the switch to EVs rolls on.
"Within 40 years, we're going to run out of conventional mined lithium," Dr. Missimer said.
