[ninalanyon]

> The battery is expensive because it’s a lot of mass of peculiar rare earths, but motors aren’t.

It's the other way about. Batteries in Chinese cars are mostly lithium iron phosphate. Not a lot of rare earths there. The motors are mostly permanent magnet motors and they definitely do have rare earths.

But anyway the name rare earths is mostly a misnomer, they aren't especially rare, less so than gold, copper, etc. They are just not conveniently located for extraction.

The batteries are expensive simply because the replacement battery market is not yet a large low risk mature market. This is in part because the batteries are lasting longer than most people, the manufacturers included, expected.

[woleium]

rare (in the) earth, i.e. well distributed, not lacking in quantity.