Elon Musk and “Mr. Lithium” are both right about the issues surrounding lithium’s supply and demand. Lithium prices are rising to insane levels — especially for a metal that isn’t rare. The issue isn’t rarity or scarcity, but it’s how to get it out of the spodumene and into an … [continued]
Originally posted on EVANNEX. By Charles Morris Among the world’s wealthy countries, Australia is one of the least EV-friendly. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s 2019 comments that characterized EVs as a threat to Australians’ way of life seem to have set the tone for Australia’s hands-off EV policy ever since — the market … [continued]
Recently, Tesla announced that it was going to spend $1 billion or more on Australian minerals, and Tesla’s Chair Robyn Denholm shared some interesting information about how her home country processes lithium. It doesn’t. It sends the lithium over to China to be refined, which isn’t good for the environment … [continued]
As we previously reported, Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group made an announcement at the end of December that its subsidiary, Yahua Lithium, signed a 5-year lithium supply agreement with Tesla. The contract’s value is reported to be a range of $630-880 million. Yahual Lithium will provide battery-grade lithium hydroxide to Tesla from 2021 through 2025. Here’s a bit more information and commentary on that deal.
China is charging full speed ahead into electric vehicles, on track to sell over 2 million electric vehicles this year, from 1.1 million in 2018. The rapid growth has been driven partly by policy, but increasingly by consumer demand. In the 3rd and final part of this series (check out part one and part two, if you missed them), we look at the ramp up in EV production and battery supply. Will production capacity be able to keep pace with the rapid growth in EV demand?
