The electric vehicle boom shows no signs of slowing.
Countries all over the world want millions of electric vehicles all over the roads, in an effort to reduce emissions. Major auto companies are changing their fleets to electric. General Motors announced it’ll increase global spending on EVs to $435 billion through 2025. Ford Motor Company recently announced that sales of its EVs jumped 117%.
Helping, President Biden is pushing for millions of electric vehicles.
According to NBC News, “There are a number of reasons behind the administration’s push for battery-car technology. There’s the need to reduce CO2 emissions in order to meet global warming targets. There’s a desire to reduce America’s dependence upon petroleum imports, and there’s also a growing concern that China will wind up dominating the EV segment — something that raises defense, as well as economic, concerns.”
However, none of this is possible without more lithium supply.
According to Reuters:
“Right now it’s very simple: the market is so tight that players are fiercely competing for any spot tonnage available,” said Max Deudon, a trader at Transamine in Geneva.
More investment in lithium production is needed to meet future needs of the electric vehicle supply chain, analysts say. “Things are heating up and there is huge anxiety about where lithium supply is going to come from in the near future,” said Benchmark Mineral Intelligence analyst George Miller. “If new lithium doesn’t start coming to market, we might start to see electric vehicle production rates hamstrung by a lack of raw material supply.”
That’s why lithium companies have become red-hot, such as Lithium Americas (LAC), Livent (LTHM), American Lithium (LIACF), and Albemarle (ALB), which, according to Barron’s, “expects sales to grow at 24% to 28% a year on average between 2021 and 2026.”
“That means Albemarle’s lithium business should be more than three times its current size by 2026, compared with this year. What’s more, the company expects lithium pricing to improve 15% to 20% in 2022. Higher pricing and higher volumes are a powerful combination for a commodity producer,” they added.
In short, jump on the lithium story. It’s showing no signs of slowing at all.