The U.S. currently sources key ingredients for electric vehicle batteries — notably lithium, cobalt and nickel — from allies such as Australia; but also from China, with whom relations are strained.
David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images filePresident Joe Biden's push for clean energy raises a number of challenges for automakers as the industry shifts towards electric vehicles, including the supply of critical raw materials such as cobalt, nickel and other metals used to make cars — and their batteries.
“A lot of people worry we’re trading fossil fuel dependence for rare earth dependence,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice president at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Lithium-ion batteries come in various shapes and forms. Tesla uses a cylindrical shape, similar to the batteries in flashlights and other consumer goods. GM’s Ultium cells are pouch-like, or prismatic. They typically have a few grams of the metal each — but that still adds up to about 22 to 25 pounds of lithium for an electric vehicle with a 300-mile range.
It’s widely believed that battery electric vehicles will generate 30 percent of U.S. vehicle sales by 2030, or somewhere between 5 million and 6 million cars and trucks. That alone would require nearly as much LCE as was produced worldwide in 2019.
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