Just did some back of the napkin calcs ( if we can do it for the nbn we can do it for electrical cables).
Ok this is just an interesting calc and many other issues come into play. I am not suggesting that this should be used for design, or poo pooing me😳. Units are not correct.
For a given weight of 1kg the following resistances per square metre are:
Aluminium 0.0011
Copper 0.0033
Iron 0.53
Silver 0.000163
Looks like silver leads for the starter motor (I am an engineer who said cost was an issue). But aluminium came in ahead of copper, now I know why transmission lines use aluminium, well there are other issues as well.