Well, perhaps GP was arguing that battery prices were functions of an economy of scale. No such property applies to petroleum, since growth in petroleum means going after more difficult reserves, which means higher prices.
There is a lot of lithium about, just not a lot of stuff that is easy to get at. The cost of lithium isn't a huge part of battery cost at the moment anyway (10s of dollars per kilo with about 50kg in an ev battery).
I don't know that I'd agree with that. Look at the computer industry, for a example, and how many small, medium, and large agents all benefit from what amounts to a distributed economy of scale. Apple, Microsoft, Dell and the like all produce better products with less investment when their suppliers can spend fewer dollars per widget throughout the supply chain.
