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Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles

Peak Lithium? Not So Fast – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – September 28, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Does the world have enough lithium? It depends who you ask.A 2008 study by French researcher William Tahil found there were just 3.9 million metric tons of recoverable deposits globally in mineral ores and Andean salt lakes.

That’s little enough that the world would risk running out as demand for lithium-ion car batteries and utility-scale storage ramps up over the coming decades.

A survey the following year by consultants Gerry Clarke and Peter Harben, though, concluded there was about 10 times that amount. Depending on the other parameters applied, those numbers suggest deposits could provide lithium for anything from a further 100 million cars — about 10 percent of the global auto fleet — to 10 billion or more.

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Electric vehicles trigger search for lithium and cobalt – by Chris Tomlinson (Houston Chronicle – September 27, 2017)

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/

Automakers this summer touted plans to offer more electric vehicles, with Mercedes-Benz announcing it will spend $1 billion to add a battery factory to its plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Ford is investing $4.5 billion in electric vehicle production, Volkswagen has promised 30 electrified models, and Volvo plans to go all electric or hybrid by 2019. Even Porsche will offer a battery-powered sports sedan called Mission E in 2020.

Automakers expect to sell 20 million all-electric vehicles in 2030, according to conservative estimates, prompting questions about where the raw materials will come from to make all of those batteries.

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BHP, world’s largest miner, says 2017 is ‘tipping point’ for electric cars – by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Gavin Maguire (Reuters U.S. – September 26, 2017)

http://www.reuters.com/

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – This year looks set to be the “tipping point” for electric cars, Arnoud Balhuizen, chief commercial officer at global miner BHP (BLT.L) said on Tuesday, with the impact for raw materials producers to be felt first in the metals market, and only later in oil.

“In September 2016 we published a blog and we set the question – could 2017 be the year of the electric vehicle revolution?” said Balhuizen, a company veteran who runs BHP’s commercial strategy, procurement and marketing from Singapore. “The answer is yes…2017 is the revolution year we have been speaking about. And copper is the metal of the future.”

Europe has begun a dramatic shift away from the internal combustion engine, although, globally, there are only roughly 1 million electric cars out of a global fleet of closer to 1.1 billion. BHP forecasts that could rise to 140 million vehicles by 2035, a forecast it says is on ‘the greener’ end.

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Exclusive: VW moves to secure cobalt supplies in shift to electric cars – by Pratima Desai (Reuters U.S. – September 22, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Germany’s Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) is moving to secure long-term supplies of cobalt, a vital component of rechargeable batteries, as the group accelerates its ambitious shift to electric cars. Cobalt industry sources told Reuters that VW, the world’s largest automaker, has asked producers to submit proposals on supplying the material for up to 10 years from 2019.

Volkswagen, which decided on the strategic shift to electric vehicles (EVs) after it was engulfed in the “dieselgate” scandal, plans to invest more than 20 billion euros ($24 billion) in zero-emission vehicles by 2030 to challenge pioneer Tesla in creating a mass market.

The company, which aims to make up to three million EVs a year by 2025, wants all the cobalt tender proposals submitted by the end of September. “The tender doesn’t actually tell you how much cobalt they want. They tell you how many EVs they want to make, you have to work out the cobalt content yourself,” one cobalt industry source said.

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Russian Nuclear Giant Joins Scramble to Supply Electric-Car Boom – by Jack Farchy and Elena Mazneva (Bloomberg News – September 19, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation is joining the lithium rush. After a collapse in the price of uranium, Rosatom Corp. plans to start mining and trading the metal used in batteries as it seeks to profit from the rapid rise of electric vehicles.

“The evolution of the car business is going much faster than predicted,” Kirill Komarov, the company’s first deputy head, said in an interview. “We plan to accumulate the whole integrated line of everything starting from lithium and up to final batteries or even some cooperation with car producers.”

Rosatom is the latest company to join a global scramble for lithium projects to supply growing demand for batteries used in electric cars such as Tesla Inc.’s Model 3 and General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Bolt.

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BlackRock fund bets big on electric future for lithium – by Henry Sanderson (Financial Times – September 15, 2017)

https://www.ft.com/

BlackRock has emerged as a big backer of lithium start-ups, as the world’s largest asset manager bets on the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.

The BlackRock World Mining Trust, which has more than £800m in assets and is co-managed by Evy Hambro, has become the largest shareholder in a handful of small mining companies aiming to produce lithium for use in batteries.

Demand for lithium has surged as the first mass-market electric vehicles such as the Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Bolt attract buyers. Growing demand for EVs has sparked a scramble to locate new supplies of lithium and prices have jumped about 26 per cent this year, making it one of the best performing commodities.

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Avalon intent to cash in on rapidly rising technology metal demand – by Henry Lazenby (MiningWeekly.com – September 15, 2017)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – A whole new world for lithium demand has aspiring technology metals firm Avalon Advanced Metals evaluating its options to cash in on the red-hot industry, with the company patiently advancing three projects in its portfolio that will benefit from higher metals prices.

Just this week, new evidence was provided that the emerging age of the electric vehicle (EV) is approaching faster and at a far greater scale than even recent forecasts predicted, with German automaker Volkswagen announcing its investment of about €20-billion in the space, which could alone gobble up the entire supply of lithium today.

China also dropped a bombshell this week when announcing tentative plans to ban internal combustion engines, which analysts expect will coincide with China’s commitment to an emissions cap by 2030.

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The one big problem with the electric-car movement – by Mark Richardson (Globe and Mail – September 13, 2017)

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/

Auto makers are meeting government demands to develop more electric vehicles, but consumers don’t want to buy them

Half of Canada may not care – yet – but this week’s huge Frankfurt auto show is all about electrification. If it doesn’t have an electrified engine, or at least the option for it, then it just doesn’t matter.

The auto makers have little choice. Governments are insisting on it. Entire countries, such as the U.K., France, even China, are preparing to outlaw the internal combustion engine. In California and nine other states, and in Quebec, state and provincial laws are calling for huge penalties on auto makers that don’t do their part to save the planet by selling electric cars.

At this week’s show, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Jaguar Land Rover promised their fleets would offer electric options for every model, with a deadline of 2020 at the earliest and 2025 at the latest. BMW showed its all-electric Mini, which will be sold in 2019, and a sporty version of its i3; Mercedes showed its all-electric EQA and EQC concepts, and Audi showed its all-electric Elaine coupe concept.

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Carmakers face electric reality as combustion engine outlook dims – by Laurence Frost and Edward Taylor (Reuters U.S. – September 11, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – European car bosses are beginning to address the realities of mass vehicle electrification, and its consequences for jobs and profit, their minds focused by government pledges to outlaw the combustion engine.

As the latest such announcement on Monday by China added momentum to a push for zero-emissions motoring, Daimler (DAIGn.DE), Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and PSA Group (PEUP.PA) gave details about their electric programs that could give policymakers some pause.

Planned electric Mercedes models will initially be just half as profitable as conventional alternatives, Daimler warned – forcing the group to find savings by outsourcing more component manufacturing, which may in turn threaten German jobs.

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Canada’s Sherritt eyes nickel products for booming battery market – by Nicole Mordant (Reuters Canada – September 11, 2017)

https://ca.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – The rise of electric cars is spurring Sherritt International Corp (S.TO) to consider branching into producing the types of nickel most sought after by battery manufacturers, the chief executive of the Canadian company said on Monday.

David Pathe said Sherritt, which is one of the world’s largest producers of nickel, was studying the economics around building a plant to produce nickel sulphate, a powder-like substance particularly suited for use in batteries.

Sherritt already produces high-grade nickel for use in the stainless steel industry and in sophisticated applications including batteries. The company does not produce nickel sulphate, which consistently fetches a price premium over London Metal Exchange-traded nickel.

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ETF Buyers Snap Up Lithium as China Fuels Electric-Car Race – by Luzi-Ann Javier (Bloomberg News – September 11, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The third-best performing exchange-traded fund tracking material producers got a jolt from China after the country said it will set a deadline for automakers to end sales of fossil-fueled vehicles.

Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF climbed as much as 5.1 percent Monday to $36.09, the highest in more than six years, as its biggest holdings FMC Corp., Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile SA, Samsung SDI Co. and Tesla Inc. rallied.

On Saturday, Xin Guobin, China’s vice minister of industry and information technology, said the government is working with regulators on a timetable to end production and sales of internal-combustion vehicles. The shift to electric vehicles is spurring a surge in demand for lithium batteries and the companies that supply the raw materials.

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Electric Cars Reach a Tipping Point – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – September 10, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Say goodbye to gasoline. The world’s slow drift toward electric cars is about to enter full flood. China, one-third of the world’s car market, is working on a timetable to end sales of fossil-fuel-based vehicles, the country’s vice minister of industry and information technology, Xin Guobin, told an industry forum in Tianjin on Saturday. That would probably see the country join Norway, France and the U.K. in switching to a wholly electric fleet within the lifetime of most current drivers.

The announcement is important because the most influential players in the global auto market have always been not companies, but governments. Diesel cars make up about half of the market in the European Union and less than a percentage point in the U.S., largely because of different fuel-taxation and emissions regimes.

Carburetors have been regulated out of most developed markets because fuel injection — originally a more costly technology — results in less tailpipe pollution. Moves toward electrification of the world’s cars have been tentative.

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We’re Going to Need More Lithium – by Jessica Shankleman, Tom Biesheuvel, Joe Ryan, and Dave Merrill (Bloomberg News – September 7, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

There’s plenty in the ground to meet the needs of an electric car future, but not enough mines.

Starting about two years ago, fears of a lithium shortage almost tripled prices for the metal, to more than $20,000 a ton, in just 10 months. The cause was a spike in the market for electric vehicles, which were suddenly competing with laptops and smartphones for lithium ion batteries.

Demand for the metal won’t slacken anytime soon—on the contrary, electric car production is expected to increase more than thirtyfold by 2030, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Rest assured, Earth has the lithium. The next dozen years will drain less than 1 percent of the reserves in the ground, BNEF says. But battery makers are going to need more mines to support their production, and they’ll have to build them much more quickly than anyone thought.

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How green are the batteries?: Electric car revolution boosts business for big Arctic air-polluter – by Thomas Nilsen (The Baren Observer – September 7, 2017)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

Nornickel eyes sharp increase in demand for nickel and copper as tens of millions of electric cars hit the roads over the next few years. Nickel prices leap to new heights, increasing 36% over the last two months. Copper, another key metal for electric car batteries, has seen prices climb by nearly 20% since mid-summer.

That is very good news for Nornickel, one of the world’s largest suppliers of both nickel an copper. With factories on the Taymyr Peninsula and in the Murmansk region, the company’s directors are smiling all the way to the bank. And back. With workers’ salaries to be paid in rubles, and sales abroad in dollars, Nornickel is benefiting from Russia’s turbulent economy with low currency rate.

Nornickel now wants to expand sales to the electric car industry. Recently the company signed an agreement with BASF on possible supply of raw materials for future battery material production for lithium-ion batteries in Europe.

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The battery revolution: balancing progress with supply chain risks (RCS Global – August 2017)

http://www.rcsglobal.com/

For the full report: http://www.rcsglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/rcs/pdfs/RCS-Global%20The-Battery-Revolution.pdf

The lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery is set to fuel a revolution in electric vehicles (EV), home energy storage and even the powering of entire cities. Yet, increasing demand for the Li-ion battery is revealing and amplifying a wide spectrum of risks associated with the materials that make up the battery itself.

As new battery technology transforms consumer markets, there is a growing realisation that the transition to electric is not without social and environmental impact in the countries where battery materials – specifically cobalt, lithium, nickel, graphite and manganese – are mined and chemically processed into battery grade materials.

These risks present significant reputational, legal, compliance and commercial concerns for major industries harnessing the battery revolution including automotive, electronics and utilities infrastructure. For local communities, the risks represent impacts that could exacerbate or even cause environmental and social problems ranging from air pollution to child labour to conflict.

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