Electric vehicle trend drives up lithium demand

A growing focus by car manufacturers on electric vehicles and hybrids is good news for the mining of lithium, cobalt, platinum and copper. According to Ted J Miller, senior manager for energy storage strategy and research at Ford, further improvements to the combustion engine are not possible and the transport industry is moving into a new domain. This, he said, would have an impact on the mining sector. “We need to offer competitive products to our customers all the time within a heavily regulated environment,” he said. “Virtually throughout the world there is regulation that impacts what we do in the automotive sector – especially concerning
carbon footprint. We have reached the limit of improving combustion engines’ efficiency and reducing consumption.” He said improving vehicle efficiency and reducing environmental impact required car makers to focus on electric vehicles and hybrids. Commenting on other trends, Miller said ride sharing would become even more prevalent than it already was, while the banning of vehicles with internal combustion engines from use in  heavily congested city centres was also on the cards. “As a global vehicle producer and seller we have to pursue the technology that is going to meet all the market’s trends. We don’t
have the luxury of saying there is a difference in markets.” He said dramatic changes were expected in the vehicle manufacturing sector by 2025 – and even
more so by 2050. “As manufacturers, we have had to recognise the dependence we have with batteries and we see a significant increase in the demand for lithium ion
batteries.” Miller said early predictions were that automotive demand alone would exceed the current battery demand.