Well aren't we all hurting from the precipitous drop in the...

Well aren't we all hurting from the precipitous drop in the price of cobalt. It is what it is, but don't be so glum. The low cobalt and lithium prices, while bad for our SP in the short/medium term, is good because:
- it puts the brakes on all those hopeful research projects to replace cobalt and lithium in batteries. Once stopped, it's not so easy for them to start researching again. The economics have to be right again for them to continue.
- it encourages EV uptake. The way I see it, the high cobalt price was a huge hurdle for EV uptake to even begin. That was not a good position to be in because it only encourages point one, research into zero cobalt batteries. It is far better for EVs to start proliferating, let the price of all the other components of the EV to become much more economical, let the infrastructure and accessibility for EVs improve. If all of these points are in place, the price of cobalt can skyrocket all it wants without causing any disruption.
- this point is related to the second point. The more EVs and infrastructure that is built based on the current battery technology, the less likely it is that any future battery technology can be taken up. Whatever new technology that comes along will be forced to play by the same physical parameters as the current batteries. Eg. Same voltages, currents, form factors, etc. This makes it much harder to replace the current technology in the future.