If the latest breakthrough on graphine fuel cells holds up, lithium batteries will look expensive in comparison.
Ultra capacitors keep making remarkable advances. (Biggest problem is their propensity to discharge all power instantly.) Raw materials isn’t the problem, manufacturing fractal-surface plates is (but is solvable).
A number of other alternatives are expensive now, but (like many manufacturing issues) is easily solved & made cheap once there’s enough demand providing a big enough pile of money to push thru a technological barrier.
Another analogy:
By some past predictions, we shouldn’t have anything close to the gasoline distribution infrastructure we have now, and shouldn’t have any gasoline to run thru it. “Peak oil” keeps getting pushed back.
I’m and electrical engineer, specialized in power systems. I’ve read countless articles about those “IFs” for decades. Neither technology is new, but the non-technical writing keeps growing.