The revolution in electric vehicles set to upturn industries from energy to infrastructure is also creating winners and losers within the world’s biggest metals markets.
While some of the largest diversified miners like Glencore Plc argue fossil fuels such as coal and oil still play a crucial role supplying energy needs, they’ll also benefit the most from a move to electric cars, requiring more cobalt, lithium, copper, aluminum and nickel.
The outlook for greener transportation got a boost this year as the U.K. joined France and Norway in saying it would ban fossil-fuel car sales in coming decades. That’s as Volvo AB announced plans to abandon the combustion engine and Tesla Inc. unveiled its latest, cheaper Model 3. Such vehicles will outsell their petroleum-driven equivalents within two decades, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates.
“For some of the metals, it’s a complete game changer,” said Simona Gambarini, a commodities economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in London. “We’ve already seen a big impact on some metals like cobalt and lithium, which have soared over the past couple of years.”
Electric cars contain about three times more copper than a regular vehicle, according to Glencore. Even more is needed for charging stations, with Exane BNP Paribas seeing such infrastructure adding about 5 percent to demand by 2025. Lithium, cobalt, graphite and manganese used in batteries will also see additional demand.
For the rest of this article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-02/electric-car-revolution-is-shaking-up-the-biggest-metals-markets