The B2B platform for full-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: Industry News

The last part of the Battery Special will take a step further to discuss not only the availability of lithium for EV batteries but also that of other materials such as rare earth elements (REE) that might be essential for the production of electric vehicles. 

Apart from all advantages regarding the environment, there is another factor of great importance to certain states when it comes to electric vehicles: it decreases the dependency on oil. But what if one dependency becomes replaced by another? The important question that still concerns researchers as well as politicians: Is there sufficient lithium available?

Researchers from the consulting firm Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG) clearly allay the fear in their new report about EV production and lithium availability. Nissan announced recently that the all-electric car LEAF has a 24kWh battery pack that contains 4 kilograms of lithium. Based on that number combined with an estimated production of half a million cars per year at an early stage, the lithium demand would reach around 2,000 tons. However, the current production is at 20,000 tons per year.

Sufficient lithium in untapped sources and through recycling 

Even if the electrification of vehicles increases significantly over the next years and decades, much beyond the level of half a million cars a year, there is still no problem of lithium availability to be feared. The full potential of all lithium sources is not explored yet. The geologist Keith Evans, advisory board member of the International Lithium Alliance, stated in an article last week that the current production is even about 95,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalents, with lithium carbonate being the predominant lithium product used for li-ion batteries. However, he says that the world’s largest reserve of lithium is in the Salar de Uyani in Bolivia, where at least 8.9 million are hold. Although at present Chile and Australia dominate the world’s lithium production, Bolivian’s reserves are still untapped and estimations suggest that around 50 per cent of the world’s reserves of lithium can be found there. This indicates that there is probably another 9 million of lithium out in other countries such as China, Canada, Australia or Argentina. Other promising reports also recognise that lithium can be obtained from recycled li-ion batteries. These have only a limited number of charge cycles in electric vehicles and their recycling could reach additional thousands of tons per year.

The figures about current production or future demand might differ from researcher to researcher also due to different definitions of lithium (lithium concentrates, lithium carbonate etc.) but the results are the same: the future of the electric vehicle is not dependent on lithium availability or the moodiness of some producing countries since there are large volumes of reserves in different countries and continents.

Supply crunch on rare earth elements?

Another resource problem might emerge that has also the potential to drive some big changes in the future of EVs. Recent declarations by China could allow the conclusion that the country will limit or even ban exports on a group of metals, so called rare earth elements (REE) that are important for electric motors in PHEVs and EVs. China is the world's dominant producer of these rare earth minerals, accounting for 93 percent of global production. Fortunately, lithium is not part of this group but an element called neodymium that is used to make magnets for electric motors is. The limitation of other rare elements such as terbium and dysprosium could pose a problem as well. They are both used to maintain neodymium's magnetic properties and anthanum, another scarce material, which is a key ingredient in the batteries of electric and hybrid cars.