Emerging lithium-ion battery apps in electric/ hybrid vehicles

There are few major auto OEMs who have established their market in the EV and HEV segments. EV auto OEMs like Toyota, GM, Nissan, and Tesla have their plants built for the full-scale production of passenger EVs. A few other auto OEMs like Honda and Hyundai have started to enter the EV automotive passenger car market. For example, Nissan's Leaf and GM's Volt: both sold around 5,200 and 15,200 units of HEVs, respectively, in 2012. These EVs require cylindrical lithium-ion batteries. The global battery industry produced around 660 million cylindrical lithium-ion batteries, which approximately consumed around 5,280 metric tons (MT) of lithium. Now, the auto OEMs have started showing interest in manufacturing of clean energy passenger cars, which run efficiently on lithium-ion batteries that provides a possibility for alternate means of transportation in the near future.

The Rising Future

Electric Vehicles

The lithium-ion battery market is rapidly evolving and is also becoming the technology of choice for next generation EVs. An enormous demand for lithium-ion batteries has already been witnessed in the electronics sector and there is an increasing potential in the emerging applications of EVs.
Lithium-ion batteries are a crucial entity of EVs. Therefore, auto OEMs are very careful in selecting their battery suppliers. The reason is simple: the better the battery pack, the better the performance of the car in acceleration, mileage, cost, life span and other aspects which help auto OEMs to have leverage over their competitors.

As per battery industry safety specifications, each lithium-ion battery should not contain more than 8 grams of lithium in the lithium battery and 1.5 grams of lithium in lithium cell. The battery industry is projected to produce around 700 million cylindrical lithium-ion batteries by the end of 2013 accounting for approximately 5,500 metric tons of lithium consumption.

Exhibit 1: The End-use Applications of Lithium-ion Batteries

Global Lithium Supply

There are basically three main types of lithium deposits: brines, pegmatites, and sedimentary rocks. Almost 65 percent of world's lithium reserve is made up from brine salts; pegmatites make up 25 percent; sedimentary rocks make up the remaining 10 percent.

• The countries that are rich with lithium reserves are Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and the USA. The following are few of the different types of lithium ores:
• Subsurface brine
• Pegmatite/spodumene (Hard rock)
• Hectorite
• Geothermal Brine
• Laderite
• Oilfield Brines
• Major players extract lithium from brine salts as it is an easier and cost-effective process when compared to extraction from hard rock (spodumene) minerals. Lithium deposits are heavily distributed in brine form across LATAM.

Exhibit 2: Global Lithium Ore Resource Concentration, 2012 (30.12 Million Metric Tons)

Exhibit 3: Global Lithium Production by Country, 2012 (37,000 MT)

Exhibit 4: Global Lithium Production by CouОбувь