Potential metal requirement of active materials in lithium-ion battery cells of electric vehicles and its impact on reserves: Focus on Europe

• Five different cell chemistries and their metal content were considered.
• First assessment of transition metals beside lithium.
• Metal demand of European e-vehicle battery cells were examined.
• Availability of four important metals was described on global and European level.

Shifting of motorized mobility toward electric propulsion has become an inevitable development direction in vehicle technology in the last few years. It raises some important questions from environmentally consciousness point of view. One of these aspects is the demand and availability of raw materials. Recent papers and studies on raw material availability are relating to a narrow topic, for example, focusing only on lithium in global consideration, or take into consideration an average metal content of batteries. Present paper makes a step toward expanding information on net metal demand of battery cell active materials and metal reserves focusing on Europe, as one of the world largest economy doing large effort to become world leader in electric mobility. Five potential cell chemistries were identified based on research trends and future expectations of researcher, car and battery manufacturers. Furthermore, a potential share of battery- and electric vehicle types in hypothetical car fleet was proposed, as well. Lithium, cobalt, manganese and nickel requirement and European reserves were examined. Present study pointed out that the potential share of electric mobility in road traffic of the European Union had a detectable, but insignificant impact on global metal production and reserves. In the case of a hypothetical European production of future traction battery cells, shortage in European lithium and nickel reserves might be expectable at around 2025. Demand on cobalt and manganese are found to be far below the available European reserves.

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide