I think this is where you have to ask "Why is the top of the Washington Monument made out of Aluminum?"
Because it was rare, in "aluminum" form.. Doesn't mean it was rare in the earth.. We just hadn't learned
how to efficiently mine it and refine it, and recycle it..
If the price of aluminum held steady with inflation from then to now.. A 12 foot stick of 1" diameter aluminum
would be almost $5000. Depending on where you pull your numbers from..
Same could happen with lithium.. OR.... Battery technology will move on to different things.. OR..
We won't even be using batteries..
Remember in the 80's when everybody said "Bull Shit" when a few people said that in 20 years everybody
would have a computer in their pocket.. Well... My computer in my pocket has 750 THOUSAND times
more memory than my first computer, and it fits in my pocket, and I don't even have to know how to
type, I can just talk to it.. And in just a matter of seconds, it can tell me (it talks too) information
that it obtained on the entire opposite side of the globe..
I am aware that at one point aluminum was more valuable than gold. We're many decades past that point in the context of Lithium.