Why lithium and rare earths are truly a bull market and the EV transition is just bull.

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The Global OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) automotive industry has begun a mostly politically (The [consumer] market is not demanding this change!) driven transition from manufacturing and selling vehicles using fossil-fueled internal combustion engines (ICE) power trains to those using electric motor propulsion (Electric Vehicle (EV)), based on electricity stored in and delivered from rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. The relatively recently created Chinese domestic OEM automotive industry is already leading the pack in the proposed transition due to basic geopolitical and economic reasons; the Chinese government has for some time now already mandated and implemented an industrial policy to support the creation of a total domestic Chinese supply chain for the production of EVs. One result of this mandate has been the creation of a secure supply of all of the critical materials for EVs sufficient to ensure the ultimate maximum practical conversion of the Chinese domestic vehicle fleet to EVs. China’s government has mandated that 25% of all motor vehicles produced in 2025 be battery-powered electric vehicles (BEV). This means that Chinese BEV production will increase from today’s 10% of total production or more than 2,000,000 units per year to more than 5,000,000 units per year by 2025.

The Chinese lithium-ion battery manufacturing industry is the world’s largest and already has enough capacity in existence or under construction to support a total domestic supply chain to meet the 2025 mandate and beyond.

This Chinese preemptive move has left the rest-of-the-world’s automakers in an existential crisis. To understand the nature of this crisis we need to look at some numbers:

  1. The global new production of lithium (measured as a metal) in 2020 was 82,000 mt or 82,000,000 kg. This was a tripling of global output over that in 2010,
  2. The global new production of cobalt (measured as metal) in 2020 was 140,000 mt or 140,000,000 kg,
  3. The global new production of magnet rare earths in 2020 was 40,000 mt or 40,000,000 kg.
  4. The global production of motor vehicles in 2020 was 78,000,000 of which some 2.5%, let’s say 2,000,000 were EVs, and
  5. The largest producer of BEVs in 2020 was Tesla, which sold somewhat more than 500,000 of them in that year.

I know that there are already 15 or 16 manufacturers of BEVs, and I know that Nickel and Manganese are important battery metals, but that isn’t going to matter much if there isn’t enough lithium around.

Lithium is the most important battery metal, simply because you cannot make a lithium-ion battery without it.

No matter what the lithium-ion battery chemistry, you need 10kg of lithium, measured as metal, to provide a battery with 60kWh of capacity, which is the standard value in the basic Tesla Model 3, the world’s current best selling BEV.

Global lithium production as I stated above was 82,000,000 kg in 2020. If all of it were to be used to make lithium ion batteries of the capacity used in the Tesla Basic Model 3 then 8,200,000 batteries and thus the same number of new BEVs could be produced or 12% of the 2020 NEW production. Therefore at current lithium production, 12% of new motor vehicle production annually (assuming that such production stays at 82,000,000 per year) or 8,200,000 would/could be BEVs. There are currently some 1.4 billion motor vehicles in use globally — 325 million of them are in North America alone. Thus at current lithium production, it would take 40 years to convert the current North American fleet if all of the world’s lithium were used just to make domestically manufactured or sold BEVs! For the global fleet, it gets even worse; it would take 150 years to do the same thing.

The obvious solution as noted by those “experts” who are completely ignorant of mineral economics is to simply increase lithium production. If we want the total conversion of the (current) global fleet to take place in 15 years then we only need to increase lithium production by a factor 10 to 820,000 tons per year, which is more lithium than has ever been produced in total, since it was first produced commercially in the mid-twentieth century.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that given sufficient time and capital new lithium production might be doubled in 5 years and that this level of production could be maintained for a decade (It takes typically 5-10 years to prove a resource, finance, get regulatory approval, and meet target production levels, but some relatively large projects have been doing these things for several years already. Therefore by 2025, the global OEM automotive industry could be producing 17,000,000 BEVs annually. We would then be looking at a global fleet conversion to BEV time of only 75 years. Of course, that level of lithium production could not be maintained anywhere near long enough due to exhaustion of the mines through grade deflation, but that doesn’t bother the “experts,” since they don’t know about that.

Let’s look at magnet rare earths also, since even a BEV using a lithium iron phosphate battery with no cobalt, nickel, or manganese is today ideally using a rare earth permanent magnet motor, because it is the most efficient traction motor. Our reference Tesla Model 3 uses about 5 kg of neodymium iron boron magnet in its traction motor and the small accessory (window, seat, power steering) motors now standard on all cars, ICSs or EVs. This is about 1.67 kg of neodymium/praseodymium (75/25) per 5 kg of magnets.

Global production of such magnets in 2020 was at least 150,000 mt or 150,000,000 kg, so there was enough, if all were used for this purpose, for 30,000,000 BEVs using rare earth permanent magnet motors, but there is a problem. Rare earth permanent magnet motors as generators are used in large quantities in direct drive wind turbine generators and as motors are used as well as in aerospace, home appliances, cell phones (the speaker magnet and the vibration mode are forms of rare earth permanent magnet devices), personal computers, industrial fork-lifts, industrial motors, etc. Let’s be generous and only use 25% of global rare earth permanent magnets for these purposes. We are now reduced to being able to produce 22,000,000 BEVs per year. Luckily that’s more than enough for the total of all of the BEVs for which we have enough lithium annually (If and when Li production doubles from the 2020 level).

More “experts” will say that recycling of lithium-ion batteries will solve the supply shortfall. Guess again. The average useful life of a North American car is now 12 years; in Europe, it’s a bit longer. Therefore in 2030 if all of the BEVs produced in 2020 were “recycled” then enough lithium and rare earths might be recovered to build an additional 2,000,000 new 2031 BEVs.

One more thing: Lets assume that stationary and back-up storage, personal computers, cell phones, and power tools will consume some of the lithium supply, say 20%. That will leave us with just enough new lithium annually for 13,000,000 new BEVs, so it’s going to take 100 years to replace the current (2020) global motor vehicle fleet.

The politicians have an easy solution to this dilemma they just put on their pointed hats and predict that the lithium (and rare earth supplies) will be increased by a factor 10 or more so that the transition can occur with a decade or two, long after they have retired as wealthy men or women.

Who is to be left holding the bag? Of course, the average consumer will be told that it is evil to drive an ICE, and, if the politicians have their way, the cheap energy upon which our civilization is founded will gradually become so expensive that the wildly ineffective alternate energy prices will look good to the elites who have VSBEVs (Virtue signaling battery electric vehicles) parked in their heated garages in their walled compounds.

Be that as it may the real losers in the Robin Hood contest for critical materials for BEVs will be the OEM automotive manufacturers who cannot get the necessary raw materials and/or the finished lithium-ion batteries to make enough BEVs to break even.

China produces 60% of all of the global refined lithium (and has contracted for at least that much of new production scheduled to come online by 2025) for battery production and 90% of the end-user products enabled by the magnet rare earths. Therefore 60% of all new BEVs will be made in China for the foreseeable future, and any use of rare earth permanent motors for anything will be dependent on Chinese manufacturing and export availability from China!

In 2025 China will probably have sufficient lithium supplies to make (the equivalent of) 8,000,000 Tesla Model 3s, the entire rest of the world will have just enough to make 5,000,000. The Ford Motor Company has already said that it will have 40% of its 2025 production as BEVs. That’s about one million cars in America and another million in China. VW, Toyota, Honda,  Daimler, Renault-Nissan, and Hyundai made 55 million cars/trucks outside of China in 2020. They will at most be able to make 7,000,000 BEVs, in 2025, if China will supply the batteries and rare earth permanent magnets for 3 million of those not made and/or distributed in China.

The only way the non-Chinese OEM automotive manufacturers can survive will be by making lots of ICEs and hoping that the price of fossil fuel hasn’t climbed so high that non-elites can still afford it. But these ICEs will be showing their age, since the huge amount of capital in the world’s most capital intensive industry will have been diverted to the development of BEVs that cannot be built.

If the EV “transition” continues I predict a consolidation of the global non-Chinese OEM automotive industry. Many famous names will go the way of the Dodo. Avoid automotive stocks where the management avoids addressing the rationing problems for lithium and rare earths.

The Robin Hood effect; moving the supply production target farther and farther away ceases to be effective when the price of lithium gets so high that the U-Curve asserts itself and batteries get too expensive to compete with fossil fuels.

Watch out if more South Americans, Africans, and Indians want BEVs, electric bikes, electric scooters, and the like. All will need lithium and the rare earths.

In the meantime and for probably the rest of this decade lithium is a bull market; the rare earths are a bull market; and the EV transition is just bull.

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19 responses

  1. Tracy Weslosky Avatar
    Tracy Weslosky

    what a well-done, well-written and accurate analysis of this market Jack – thank you. I recommend that everyone read this piece.

    1. Brett Avatar
      Brett

      As I understand it the Chinese are using much inferior batteries for their lower end models, believe I read even some lead/acid still. However, you put your finger on a huge problem: politicians believe they can legislate a solution to anything, even the laws of physics.

  2. Ross James Avatar
    Ross James

    Meanwhile, in the news today is a story about cheap production of lithium from seawater. There are dozens of lithium mines coming online in the next few years, so I’m more worried about a surplus driving down prices as happened in the last few years. But you’re right about rare earths.

  3. Rare Earths Investor Avatar
    Rare Earths Investor

    At last, challenges to all the ongoing hype around EV production predictions for this decade and beyond, that presently engulf the media. A very interesting numbers-based analysis of EV critical metals’ needs, re., theory and reality.

    I would add a couple of other angles. Consumer habits and big oil. The EV hype releases make the globe sound like it’s made up of a homogeneous car consumer base. IMHO, that’s not the case. For example, the Chinese have little tradition in car consumership. Also, there is a governmental drive to reduce their reliance on outside oil dependence, as well as curtail their serious ‘visible’ pollution issues.

    In contrast, the US with approx., a quarter of global car usage is steeped in SUV, truck and muscle gas guzzling history. Nor, does it have the amount of ‘visible’ (policy driving) pollution issues.

    Further, big oil (despite Exxon’s latest news) is not going to roll over in the US and give up its fossil fuel transport markets to a hyped set of EV figures; especially, when it has an over 30s ‘traditional’ consumer base.

    Also, remember, where do we all those oil dividends come from that millions of US (and ROW) present and future retirees (pension funds, etc) rely upon? EVs? yes, they are coming, but nowhere near the pace that the story-hungry journalists and analysts, etc., would have us believe; especially in the largest car market.

    Mr. Lifton’s numbers are one of several vital considerations (again, IMHO) that will apply the brakes to today’s EV proclamations, at least over this present decade.

    GLTA RE investors.

  4. Rob Rider Avatar
    Rob Rider

    Surely EVs will be priced the same as ICEs by 2025, and at some point afterwards EVs will be even cheaper than ICEs? Will you still be calling those people buying EVs “elites”?

    1. Jack Lifton Avatar
      Jack Lifton

      Rob,
      Yes, I will. The massive investment in the EV transition and the increasing costs of discovering, constructing mines for, and producing as much lithium and rare earths as possible have to be covered. The “cheap”, aka the Volkswagen (translation: “Peoples’ Car”), EV is a pipe dream. The Chinese 3-wheeler with a 50 mile range is not the vehicle-of-choice for America.
      Jack

  5. Ross James Avatar
    Ross James

    The actual 2019 lithium production of 82,000 tons compares with the projected production of a million tons by 2025. Is that wishful thinking? What I would like to know is whether the current production is driven by supply or demand. Could today’s miners have delivered much more, had there been a market for it? Or could the buyers have used far more than what was available?
    The gold mines seem always to dig up more of that element when the price goes up. Lithium certainly costs more today than it did two years ago. Lack of lithium supply doesn’t seem to be the problem that lack of silicon chips seems to be for ICE vehicles.

    1. Jack Lifton Avatar
      Jack Lifton

      Ross,
      I think that today’s production of lithium, its demand, and its price are driven by inventorying by battery makers. It is in oversupply.
      As for “chips” they are not just an ICE problem. In fact they are a very big problem for EV makers. The chips in question are the onboard computers that control EV battery operation as well as ICE operations. And, of course, they control power systems (door locks, windows, seats, navigation, lights,dashboard displays….). Try operating a keyless entry device to open and start a care without onboard radiofrequency management. Do you think automatic lane keeping and emergency braking are managed by hamsters on a treadmill?
      Jack

    2. Hussam Taha Avatar
      Hussam Taha

      The very first paragraph is inaccurate. There’s huge appetite from consumer for EV but the price of acquisition stands in between the dream and the action to fullfil it!

      1. Tracy Weslosky Avatar
        Tracy Weslosky

        THX for visiting. The challenge is clear. Most battery materials are on the critical materials list, which means we do not have a sustainable supply chain to achieve the numbers publicized by auto makers. Price will always be impacted by the materials required.

    3. Jack Lifton Avatar
      Jack Lifton

      Hussam
      I do not see the consumer appetite for EVs
      Jack

      1. Zac Avatar
        Zac

        Demand for ebikes is absolutely, over the top, on fire

  6. Tony G Avatar
    Tony G

    2020 production of LCE is 320k tons and is projected to get to 800k to 1.2 million tones LCE by 2025 and 2 million by 2030. As the price of Lithium rises is gets easier to develop less economical sources. Since doubling the price of the Lithium does not add much to the price of a battery it is possible to increase the price of LiThium and not increase the price of BEVs meaningfully. By 2035 we will be able start recycling large amounts of lithium so I think this article misses the mark and their will not be the terrible limitations on battery availability as it claims. There will be a Lithium Bull Market I agree to that and companies like Nano One will drop the price of Batteries. So technology will play a role in dropping prices of Batteries and increasing Lithium Extraction (DLE) this transition is happening because it’s necessary……

  7. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    You need to check out bio fuels, like undrinkable 100% alcohol and farming genetically engendered biodiesel in marginal land unsuitable for food crops.
    I know where my investment dollars are going……..

  8. Mark Mettler Avatar
    Mark Mettler

    Insightful information and realistic expectations for limited resources. The realisation that we have already passed the tipping point on global temperatures and that there is no way back hasn’t yet been acknowledged. We are seeing the rest of the world embrace the consumerism markets like the US has led and as a result more precious resources like fresh drinking water will soon take front stage. The oil barons will continue to push the auto industry and plastics manufacturers and as a result the seas will die washing ashore that death and that will spread to mankind faster than the Summer heat takes us annually.

    Efforts: Too much, too little, too late to make a difference now. Hyperinflation will be more the US concern soon. Water shortages, food shortages, insufficient medical care, these will become the focus, not transportation. Population control world wide will soon matter less as the human death toll rises to meet the seas death toll. That will create a new layer of carbon based materials for another time to harvest oil.

    Jack thanks for the reality check.

  9. HT Low Avatar
    HT Low

    Commentators might need to take into account the drop in car ownership because cars are going to be AI self-driving. There is no need to own cars, a depreciating asset which sits idle 94% of the time. Car sharing will be ubiquitous & the numbers of cars on the road will be reduced.

  10. george marhsal Avatar
    george marhsal

    Surely EVs will be priced the same as ICEs by 2025, and at some point afterward, EVs will be even cheaper than ICEs? Will you still be calling those people buying EVs “elites”? Click here

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