Would Russia Be Invading Ukraine Right Now If Elon Musk Hadnt Shifted The Course Of Automotive History? – CleanTechnica

By Jo Borrs and Zachary Shahan

It is a wild but real question: Would Russia be invading Ukraine right now if Elon Musk hadnt shifted the course of automotive history?

This article came about from some people proposing that the rise of Elon Musk and the EV revolution made Ukraines mineral deposits too valuable for Putin to ignore. Depending on who you believe, the abundance of rare-earth metals in Ukraine needed to power the EV revolution is the real reason that Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched an invasion on the sovereign nation.

Its unrealistic to think that Putin invaded Ukraine just for some more natural resources. As most Ukrainians and Putin experts have pointed out, the gruesome invasion appears to be a combination of Putins disdain for Ukrainians who think they arent part of Russia (which means almost all Ukrainians), the threat of a free and blossoming democracy right next door to Russia (which might give more Russians ideas that Putin doesnt want them to have), and Putins dream of putting the USSR back together or a Russia even further back in time and larger in geography. (Notably, Putin also got divorced in the year that he invaded Crimea, 2014, and he seems ridiculously isolated from the rest of the world these days, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began.) All of those explanations do not mean that there isnt an EV and Elon Musk angle, though.

The transportation industry is electrifying. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Europe. In 2021, 19% of new passenger vehicle sales in Europe were plugin vehicle sales, and 10% were full-electric vehicle sales. There were the same percentages in January 2022, and January is known to be one of the weakest months if not the weakest for EV sales, so expect 2022 to fly past 2021s result.

Meanwhile, while large superpowers like the US and China have very diverse economies, the Russian economy is largely based on oil & gas. The late Senator John McCain famously said, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.

Its kleptocracy. Its corruption. Its a nation thats really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy, and so economic sanctions are important, he added.

And all of that is important without noting that Russian oil & gas production has become harder and harder, more and more costly, and less and less profitable.

Wikipedia writes, The oil and gas sector accounted up to roughly 40% of Russias federal budget revenues, and up to 60% of its exports in 2019.[51]In 2019, theNatural Resources and Environment Ministryestimated the value of natural resources to 60% of the countrys GDP.[52] In an article two years ago, the Warsaw Institute wrote, Vladimir Putin has not taken advantage of the long years of the oil boom and huge state budget revenues from oil exports to reform the economy. Instead of diversifying and strengthening other industrial sectors, it turns out that in the years 2010-2018 Russia has become even more dependent on hydrocarbons. It turns out that the share of oil and gas production in the Russian economy increased from 34.3% to 38.9%. The share of other types of production activity, in particular, the manufacturing industry, decreased from 53.2% to 50.7%.

A move away from oil, something that is happening much faster than most presumed, is a great threat to the Russian economy, and thus to Vladimir Putin. Perhaps Putin did see this threat arising and decided that he would pursue his dream of expanding Russia before it was too late. Perhaps he thought, alone in his bubble of emptiness and callous nationalism, that he had better return Russia to its former glory now, before dying of COVID, a coup, or a citizen uprising.

Next, we have to admit that one of the reasons were here in 2022 talking about a very certain electric future for automobiles is the success of Tesla and that is due largely to the influence of Elon Musk. Tick that box as true, but well explain it in more detail further down.

Image courtesy of Tesla.

Are you with us so far? Now, well ask you again: Would Russia be invading Ukraine right now if Elon Musk hadnt shifted the course of automotive history by investing in Tesla in 2004?

Its a meme. Its fine.

Obviously, we are not blaming Elon Musk for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That said, it wasnt all that long ago that Russia was spoken of as part of a BRIC of nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) that some believed would come to collectively dominate global economic growth by 2050.

That notion was largely driven by those nations low labor costs, favorable demographics (whatever that means), and abundant natural resources at a time of a global commodities boom in the early aughts. Natural resources arent created equal, however, and petroleum certainly isnt the long-term, slam-dunk investment it once appeared to be (Goldmans BRICS fund has lost 88% since 2010) and that has an awful lot to do with Tesla.

Photo by Zachary Shahan.

Think of the automotive landscape in March of 2009, when Tesla first unveiled the Model S. The car business was in chaos, reeling from the global financial crisis. Only weirdos like Ed Begley Jr. and well, me and Zachary and Chelsea Sexton were thinking seriously about EVs. The closest thing there was to a mainstream electric car was the Chevy Volt concept GM showed in 2007 and that was still a few years away.

There was nothing, in other words and certainly nothing desirable. Heck, even the Tesla was a bit of a niche thing with a limited audience and a questionable future, according to the zeitgeist of the moment.

Then the videos started showing up on YouTube. All of a sudden, an electric car wasnt just an expensive car. An electric car became a fast car. So fast, in fact, that it made the old guard of Mustang, Camaro, and Corvette buyers sit up and take notice. Heck, it made real supercar buyers sit up and ask themselves what it was, really, that made a car super at all especially when the family sedan in the other lane just wiped the floor with their mid-engined exotic.

The Tesla Model S quickly became the car to have if you wanted the fastest car on the block, or wanted to be seen as a forward thinker. The virtue signaling of electrification and environmental responsibility was a bonus.

Photoshop is our friend. Photo and slight modification by Chanan Bos, CleanTechnica.

Fast forward to 2022, and just about every carmaker bar Honda and Mazda have committed to majority electric or all-electric lineups by the next decade, Tesla is the most valuable carmaker on Earth (worth more than the next several automakers combined), and even the blue chips like Ford are looking for ways to run their companies like Tesla.

And, yes, its noteworthy that none of those automakers not a one can build the millions of electric cars theyll need to stay profitable without a bunch of rare natural resources. It is also true that Ukraine has an abundance of the very kind of natural resources that the EV revolution needs.

Gallium, titanium, lithium, rare earths it seems like theres a lot worth fighting over in the Ukraine especially if youre the kind of person who values the upward trajectory of your stock portfolio over decency or human life. And, while some companies are bending over backwards to ensure their EV materials are ethically sourced and part of a closed-loop system to minimize their long-term environmental impact others are not.

But, again, those minerals have always been there and the calculus of the past, at least, balanced out against invasion. That may have changed, and a trillion-dollar valuation may have had something to do with that.

On the topic of lithium, The Indian Express writes, Ukrainian researchers have speculated that the countrys eastern region holds close to 500,000 tons of lithium oxide, a source of lithium, which is critical to the production of the batteries that power electric vehicles. That preliminary assessment, if it holds, would make Ukraines lithium reserves one of the largest in the world.

Late last year, Ukraine started to auction off exploration permits to develop its lithium reserves, as well as copper, cobalt and nickel. All are natural resources that play critical roles in the clean energy technology essential to the shift away from fossil fuels that scientists say is necessary to ward off the worst consequences of climate change.

Ukraines potential for lithium production had started to attract global attention. In November, European Lithium, an Australian firm, said it was in the process of securing rights to two promising lithium deposits in the Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine, and Kirovograd, in the center of the country. The company said at the time it aimed to become Europes largest lithium supplier.

The same month, the Chinese company Chengxin Lithium also applied for rights to lithium deposits in Donetsk and Kirovograd, according to news media reports, a move that would give it its first foothold in Europe. Neither company responded to requests for comment.

Do you think a 17-year-old Elon Musk moving to Canada so he could avoid conscription in the South African army (which, while were here, seems like it was the right thing to do) was the starting domino in a long chain of events that would eventually see Vladimir Putin order Russian troops to march on Ukraine, or is this just another example of whatever it was that Jeff Goldblums character was going on about in Jurassic Park?

Image from IMDB.

Scroll on down to the comments section and let us know what you think. But please note: youll get a lot more imaginary internet bonus points by including a meme in the comments. Enjoy!

Original content from CleanTechnica.

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Would Russia Be Invading Ukraine Right Now If Elon Musk Hadnt Shifted The Course Of Automotive History? - CleanTechnica