Column: Electric dreams turn into a nightmare for battery metals
A sector that was once racing to build new supply has been closing mines and deferring projects as low prices bite into the cost curve.
While electric vehicle sales growth has certainly slowed down from the torrid pace of the last few years, the global EV market, including plug-in and conventional hybrids, should easily top 20 million units this year.
In combined battery capacity deployed – a better indicator of battery materials demand than unit sales alone – the global electric car market expanded by 22% so far this year.
In total, 505.6 GWh of fresh battery power hit the globe’s roads from January through August, according to data from Toronto-based EV supply chain research firm Adamas Intelligence.
The robust growth rate also comes despite a noticeable swing towards hybrid vehicles, which have inherently smaller batteries and therefore contained metal.
The combined battery capacity of plug-in hybrid vehicles steered onto roads globally for the first time this year is up 70% versus a must more sedate pace for full electric passenger vehicles of 15%. At the same time the average battery capacity of plug-ins is also rising, up 14% this year to 23kWh, more than a third of the average full electric vehicle.
For miners supplying the EV battery industry, the news remain negative: when pairing metals demand with prices in the supply chain, declines this year are brutal.
The latest data based on EV registrations in over 110 countries show the sales weighted average monthly dollar value of the lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite contained in the batteries of the average EV based on global end-user registrations, battery capacity and chemistries.
Put it all together and the raw materials bill for the average EV is now down to $537 compared to $1,342 in August 2023 and a monthly peak of more than $1,900 at the beginning of last year, according to Adamas Intelligence analysis.
The downtrend is led by lithium where the sales weighted average value per EV is down 75% over the past year to $236 and cobalt, which at little over $46 is 42% below the value reached in August 2023. Manganese is the only battery raw material in positive territory this year, up 3% but the raw material is also down 8% compare to the same month last year. For anode material, graphite loadings and values have held mostly steady at just under $26 per average EV.
The value of nickel in the average EV battery is down 26% as LFP battery chemistries continue to take global markets. LFP batteries represented 42% of the global total in terms of capacity deployed in GWh in August.
That compares to a 32% share during the same month last year, more than offsetting the long-running trend towards high-nickel cathodes, and the growing popularity of NCM batteries for larger plug-in and range-extending hybrids, where the energy density of nickel-based cathodes makes more sense given the weight of these vehicles.
For a fuller analysis of the battery metals market check out the latest Northern Miner print and digital editions.
* Frik Els is Editor at Large for MINING.COM and Head of Adamas Inside, providing news and analysis based on Adamas Intelligence data.
