Why could Lithium Production Limit Electric Vehicle Manufacture?
To attain Net Zero, the global stock of 1 billion passenger cars will need to be progressively upgraded to a low-carbon emission passenger car fleet.
The range of commercially available low-carbon passenger cars indicates Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) seem to be winning the race with Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) to become the preferred choice with consumers. I wouldn't discount FCEVs, as the technology matures, drivers with a strong focus on vehicle range will remain a cohort of consumers.
As EV battery technology has matured, the cost of BEVs and hybrid EVs have reduced and are beginning to approach cost parity with respect to petrol and diesel cars. The cost of batteries significantly contributes to the remaining price differential. The cost improvements for BEVs are now at risk due to the availability of Lithium.
The uptake of BEVs and Hybrid EVs has increased exponentially, with the current global EV passenger fleet at 10 million cars. It is excellent to see growing confidence in EVs through the exponential shift from Hybrid BEVs to BEVs purchases.
To attain Net Zero, the transition of the global passenger fleet will need to continue at an exponential rate for at least the next decade.
The average BEV battery has approximately 140 kilograms (kg) of working compounds. The active compounds are an assembly of nickel, cobalt, lithium, manganese and graphite. Lithium contributes about 7 kgs of the active compounds in the average BEV.
The inclusion of lithium within BEVs has been critical in eliminating the battery memory effort, thus increasing the battery life span and contributing significantly to consumer confidence in making the transition to BEVs. The adjustment of the global passenger car fleet to BEVs will require significant growth in the worldwide production of lithium. Production of lithium has already doubled to 86,300 tonnes per year since 2016. Assuming a typical EV 45-kilowatt hour (kWh) rating and that each kilowatt-hour requires 0.16 kg lithium. When you couple this with the projected uptake of EVs, lithium production will need to increase to about 1 million tonnes annually by 2040 for the electrification of only passenger cars. This forecast includes for 20% of EVs cars being replaced with new model EVs but doesn’t allow for any lithium requirements associated with EV battery replacement for car operation beyond life-span of the batteries.
It appears that EV batteries have a usable life span of 10 to 20 years, enabling car manufacturers to comfortably offer a 5 to 8 year EV battery warranty. As the travel range of EV batteries, generally, EV batteries will be repurposed for use in housing and building electrical storage systems prior to recycling that harnesses the individual materials and compounds that make up the battery fabric. While the EV battery recycling industry has started to develop, it is unlikely that lithium recovery will significantly reduce the forecast lithium production in the next decade.
Lithium is not considered a rare metal; estimates put global reserves at 55 million tonnes of lithium in the form of lithium minerals, brines and minerals in clay. Currently, 86% of lithium is mined in Australia, Chile and China, and most post-mining processing is done in China. In the last five years, the cost of raw lithium carbonate from lithium brine mining has doubled in price. While lithium is only one component of EVs, it is clear that both mining and process facilities need to be extended to ensure EV manufacture is not limited by the available supply of lithium.
More BEVs are going to be required to attain net-zero. Hence, scaling up lithium production is essential to meet the projection for BEV manufacture. In addition, to ensure the security of supply, we must develop globally distributed processing capacity.
Sources:
Book: "The Role of Electric Vehicles in the Energy Transition: a Multidimensional Approach" by Angel Arcos-Vargas, 2021
Vehicles in use | www.oica.net
How Much Lithium is in an Electric car Battery?-battery-knowledge | Large Power
Electric Car Battery Life, Cost of Replacement, Recycling & Leasing | EDF (edfenergy.com)
