Adoption in the US

Zeihan's remarks about electric vehicles come as some US states are aggressively pushing electric vehicle adoption despite lacking the infrastructure to support them.

California is trying to ban the sale of diesel commercial trucks by 2040 and gasoline-powered cars by 2035. However, the state advised electric car owners not to charge the vehicles in early September due to electricity shortages.

Switching to renewable energy sources does not come cheap. The United States will have to spend trillions of dollars to upgrade power grids to accommodate renewable energy demands, according to research firm Wood Mackenzie.

We estimate the cost of fully decarbonizing the US power grid at $4.5 trillion, given the current state of the technology... From a budget perspective, the cost is staggering: $35,000 per home, almost US$2,000 per year assuming a 20-year plan,” said Wood Mackenzie in a post.

Globally, the International Energy Agency has set a target of 47 million electric vehicle sales by 2030. Speaking to the Financial Times, Daniel Morgan, a mining analyst at investment bank Barrenjoey, cited 28 million as a realistic target. But even this would require lithium production to increase six-fold by 2030.

Electric vehicle production targets that governments or automakers make are impossible to meet, Morgan said. "There's a lot of love for throwing high targets, but where the rubber hits the road, it's not going to happen."