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President Obama set a goal of putting one million electric vehicles (EVs) on the road in America by 2015. However, like anything that goes to scale, it has to be considered what resource constraints may impact such an emerging technology, and therefore to what extent such a technology is sustainable. This puts the spotlight on EV batteries.
The new crop of electric vehicles, employ lithium batteries（Li-FePO4 battery or Li-Mn2O4 battery）to store electrical energy. Commercially, this type of battery is optimal due to its favorable energy density, meaning for any given battery size, a better driving range can be achieved. So scaling production of EVs, there will be enough lithium battery to support the President’s goals.
According to statistics, approximately half of lithium sitting in Bolivia, reserve base of 11 million tons. This is compared with a reserve – the portion of the reserve base that can be economically extracted – of 4.1 million tons, nearly 75% of which is deposited in Chile. Use in batteries accounts for just 14% of the total today. Lithium batteries will not become the dominant use for the metal until 2014. Beyond 2014 however, batteries will prompt a steep increase in demand, with electric vehicle batteries accounting for 38% of all lithium batteries produced by 2020.
These statistics show that for the foreseeable future, lithium as a resource is not going to be a limiting factor to electric vehicle production. Just the opposite, the TRU Group projects that lithium production this decade could be almost double the demand. While this is bad news for the lithium producing industry, which will likely see depressed prices, it is perhaps good news with respect to the downward pressure on vehicle battery cost. Since batteries are a major factor in the price premium of electric vehicles, this could lead to more affordable EV’s being available in years to come. |
