Hummer EV production kicks off. Source: GM
Analyst David Leitch, the co-host of the popular Energy Insiders podcast on The Driven’s sister site RenewEconomy, told me this week that the people making the most money out of the green energy revolution right now were lithium miners.
Prices have shot up, and the people paying for it are the buyers of electric vehicles, where the lithium content in the batteries accounts for a surprisingly big sum.
A snippet of information from analysts at Morgan Stanley highlights the cost of lithium in EV battery packs in the current market bottleneck that has sent lithium prices soaring to around $US71,000 a tonne.
Based on this price, and calculations that around 0.726 kilograms of lithium are needed for each kWh in the battery pack, the Morgan Stanley analysts conclude that an average battery pack of 60kWh would have more than $US3,000 of lithium on board.
Teslas – particularly the long range and performance versions – have around 80kWh batteries, which would translate into more than $US4,000 of lithium in each battery pack. Rivians have around $US6,000 of lithium and the massive electric Hummer’s more than $US10,000 in their big battery packs.
The, of course, does not take into account any contracted suppliers – it is based on the spot price – and does not take into account other metals used in an EV.
The exact numbers identified by Morgan Stanley were:
Your Model Y has $US4123 or $A6,351 of lithium in its batteries;
Your Rivian electric ute has $US6,757, or $A10,717, of lithium in its battery pack;
And your electric Hummer has $US10,977, or $A17,000.
It’s the biggest reason why the cost of metals in EVs – less steel, but more aluminium, copper, plus lithium, nickel and cobalt is twice that of internal combustion engines (steel, aluminium, copper and PGMs), and a major reason why EV prices have not yet yet fallen back down to the levels of international combustion engines, as predicted.
Of course, those numbers vary according to the various battery chemistries and the metals used in different EVs.
According to Benchmark Source, a London-based battery analyst, the soaring cost of lithium means that lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries have lost some of their competitive advantage over nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) chemistries.
Benchmark’s Cathode Price Assessment puts the cost of NCM batteries at $US78.64 per kWh, a doubling in price since the start of last year. But LFP chemistries – which have grown to more than 40 per cent of the market – have risen nearly four-fold to nearly $US50/kWh over the same time.
Keyword: Your Model Y has $6,350 of lithium in its batteries, your Hummer has $17,000