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That looks awesome!!!

Thank you Travis, thats a really interesting insight into what people think. Its also useful to perhaps address some of the points. Dont rely on here say, its often not well informed. As we move forward the Li ion battery will become the mainstay of all EVs, and they have a lifespan in complete charges , ie virtually empty to virtually full of something like 4000 cycles. Some cheaper versions like Lifepo4 may have half that. Partial charges extend the life considerably. One OEM company I have worked with has vehicles using the Li ion Cell blocks I use, that have passed the 300000Km mark. A taxi I had a ride in in Amsterdam works the airport route 24/7 , a Tesla, its 18months old and already passed 200000km. So achieving 1000 hours of use really isnt a problem. I have a number of owners who use their Polaris rangers and were killing a set of lead acid in around 2 years . Thats probably heading towards around 500 hours of use. Now they have shifted to Li ion and already well past the 2 year stage. As many people who use these vehicles in the UK also have Solar PV systems on their properties (They feed the grid and get paid for it) they effectively get the power for nothing. But even if you pay for the electricity at an average of £0.2 /kwh (most pay considerably less) then that equates to around £0.04 per mile or less. Here petrol (Gas) costs £6.5 per 5 ltrs and rising daily. In Automobile terms ,the energy cost of producing gas is around the equivalent of being able to drive around 25miles in an EV, thats the energy cost of production . the energy used to refine one US gallon of fuel. The weight issue is interesting, back to Rangers, if we shift to Li ion from Lead acid we lose over 160kg of weight , but gain around 50% extra range over lead acid. The motor weighs around 30kg and the Li ion pack around 100kg. There is no gearbox so weight is lost there as well. fully charged makes no difference. If you have 20ltrs of fuel then thats about 20kg of weight. its no longer such a big issue. On the cobalt front, its a few grams used in only some of the battery chemistry. Cobalt is heavily used in the petro chemical industry as well as in many of the steels and alloy components. Its just convenient for some who wish to rubbish EVs to forget about such things. Reality is very inconvenient. Some countries do have some really awful cobalt mines, but industry and the public have not worried about it in the past. Most cobalt does not come from such clearly bad places. The production of Diamond however is however mostly reliant on very low wage economies, but that doesnt stop the sale or concerns on that front. Its all about what you what to portray and how you wish to see the world. Cobalt is used to increase the energy denist, ie more charge for a given volume of cell. I dont understand the " 5 pounds of raw earth per mile" point. Could you explain that please. The recycling of Li ion batteries is moving forward, its not good at the moment. Mainly because the volumes have been so small so far that people havnt seen how they can make money from it. Thats changing. But put that into perspective. The bulk of a li ion battery is aluminium and copper foil. A thin layer (think photocopy black print) of carbon in which is a small % of lithium and the other compounds. That can be recovered, and gives the bulk of the value. Its interesting that you appear to be saying that countries like the US simply ship their waste abroad. Thats been banned for some time in Europe, we can only hope that the US will deal with its waste at home. The originator of Tesla , JB Straubel is going out in a big scale to develop li Ion recycling technologies and equipment. Stuff generally goes to landfill because people wont pay the cost of proper disposal. Thats their choice. Again that phrase is one we keep coming back to. Choice. But choice needs to have people willing to understand the issue and not rely on here say. We should all take some responsibility to pass through life and understand the world, unfortunately we tend to only listen to those re-enforcing the views we already have. Thats a challenge in life in general, not just EV v ICE. As to burning batteries, on EVs it makes great news to show a burning TESLA, but not good news to show the hundreds of conventional fueled vehicles that burn every day. That is also changing as curiously its the cobalt in the cells that causes the burn. In the chemistry that doesnt use Cobalt, and there are loads that dont , (lifepo4) they dont ignite. They do get hot they do melt plastic they do give of huge amounts of vapour. But lifepo4 dont burn. Thanks for taking the time to comment, and keep enjoying repairing your internal combustion engines. They will be with you for many years to come. Out of interest what is the cost of a replacement engine in an average UTV? 1000 even 2000 hours is a really short lifespan.