I'm having trouble seeing how it would take more copper than has been mined throughout all history up to 2018.
First, there would be the copper needed in the actual cars. A BEV uses about 80 kg of copper (compared to around 20 for an ICE). At 15.5 million cars and light trucks sold per year in the US that's 1.2 million metric tons of copper per year. World copper production is 22 million metric tons per year, so 5% of world copper production.
Then there would be any copper needed for any upgrades to the electrical distribution system.
Working out from the home, level 2 EV charging draws about the same amount of power as an electric clothes dryer. Most home electrical systems are already designed to handle the load of a clothes dryer running during the day when households are also using their other electrical appliances. They should have no trouble with someone charging their EV overnight (which electric companies will encourage with lower overnight rates).
The key here is that in most cases EV charging at home won't increase the peak load. It will just raise the average load. So no need for new wiring.
The same should be true of most of the electrical distribution infrastructure in cities.
Maybe we'll need to build more transmission lines between cities and regions. But those are usually made of aluminum, not copper.
Copper is more conductive than aluminum so to make an aluminum wire with the same capacity it was to have a cross section about 56% bigger, so your wire has 56% more aluminum by volume. But copper is way denser than aluminum (8.96 g/cm^3 vs 2.7 g/cm^3) so the aluminum wire is only 47% as heavy as the copper wire. For lines that are not buried that means your supports only have to be half as strong, lowering their costs.
Aluminum is also a lot cheaper ($2.57/kg vs $9.50/kg) so the aluminum wire is only about 13% of the cost of the copper wire. That's a huge win even with buried lines.
First, there would be the copper needed in the actual cars. A BEV uses about 80 kg of copper (compared to around 20 for an ICE). At 15.5 million cars and light trucks sold per year in the US that's 1.2 million metric tons of copper per year. World copper production is 22 million metric tons per year, so 5% of world copper production.
Then there would be any copper needed for any upgrades to the electrical distribution system.
Working out from the home, level 2 EV charging draws about the same amount of power as an electric clothes dryer. Most home electrical systems are already designed to handle the load of a clothes dryer running during the day when households are also using their other electrical appliances. They should have no trouble with someone charging their EV overnight (which electric companies will encourage with lower overnight rates).
The key here is that in most cases EV charging at home won't increase the peak load. It will just raise the average load. So no need for new wiring.
The same should be true of most of the electrical distribution infrastructure in cities.
Maybe we'll need to build more transmission lines between cities and regions. But those are usually made of aluminum, not copper.
Copper is more conductive than aluminum so to make an aluminum wire with the same capacity it was to have a cross section about 56% bigger, so your wire has 56% more aluminum by volume. But copper is way denser than aluminum (8.96 g/cm^3 vs 2.7 g/cm^3) so the aluminum wire is only 47% as heavy as the copper wire. For lines that are not buried that means your supports only have to be half as strong, lowering their costs.
Aluminum is also a lot cheaper ($2.57/kg vs $9.50/kg) so the aluminum wire is only about 13% of the cost of the copper wire. That's a huge win even with buried lines.
What else would be needed that would use copper?