Electric car sales are at an all-time high, with companies including Tesla, Volkswagen, and Mercedes posting record shipments in the first three months of 2022. But because of the surge in demand, experts are unsure whether enough lithium is available.
“In the next two years, even though there will be significant growth in supply, it will be less than demand, so the gap will just continue to grow,” lithium and mining expert Joe Lowry, who has earned the nickname Mr. Lithium, recently said in an interview with Bloomberg.
Lithium prices have surged a staggering 438% above last year. The increase comes as the amount of the metal used has almost quadrupled over the last decade. But the process for extracting lithium, and a relative lack of investment, have yet to catch up with the rising demand.
Extracting lithium is complicated, involving either mining the ore and then separating the metal or pumping underground water deposits to the surface and then extracting the metal from pools.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/top-lith ... 59766.html
Seems like the solution to fossil fuels may not be found in EVs. At least not EVs for the masses..
