If you look at the references you'll see that there's quite enough lithium for all the EVs we might need.

"The amount" [of lithium] "used by each battery isn't that great ...."

Please also consider the shear absolute numbers. Take for instance cell phones. Most cell-phones contain a tiny amount of tantalum. But making half a billion new cell phones annualy and using small amounts of tantalum in roughly yet another half a billion other handheld electronic devices annualy amounts to a significant portion of annual global production of tantalum.

Yes; "One of the greatest shortcomings of human beings is our incapacity to understand the exponential function."

Look also in this perspective at windenergy. Like with oilfields, extracting the easiest available oil first, they install windmills in the easiest available, most comfortable and/or best places first. After this comes the much more difficult places, like far offshore. Considering EV's what counts is the first year that the sell of internal combustion vehicles goes in terminal decline. More important than that all the big carmakers will produce EV's in 2011-2012 is: How many people can afford to buy an EV, above all when the economy is suffering ?