Is the supply crisis of electric vehicle battery materials coming?

Regarding the use of cobalt, it has never stopped since ancient times. The ancient Greeks and Romans used it to make colored glass, and the blue color on the famous Tang Sancai porcelain during the Tang Dynasty in China is also a masterpiece of cobalt. In modern times, cobalt and its alloy products have been widely used in many industrial fields, such as machinery, chemical industry, and even special aerospace. It can be said that cobalt has become a metal of very important strategic significance today. Cobalt is especially important for the field of new energy vehicles, which is being vigorously promoted and developed rapidly all over the world. As we all know, the field of new energy vehicles has successfully passed the start-up period since its development. Although the technology is not yet mature, it gradually has a clear development direction in the process of survival of the fittest. For example, lithium iron phosphate batteries with large volume, low energy density, and weak low temperature resistance have been eliminated by the industry. In order to further improve the battery life of electric vehicles, BYD abandoned lithium iron phosphate batteries and switched to ternary lithium batteries. is a good example. The ternary lithium battery, known for its advantages of high energy density, high efficiency, high safety, and relatively large unit electric energy, is favored and widely used in today's electric vehicle field.Also read:https://www.aimeno.com/lithium-battery-pack/198.html Although ternary lithium batteries are divided into two categories, one is the nickel-cobalt-lithium battery used by Tesla, the benchmark in the global pure electric vehicle market, and the other is the nickel-cobalt-manganese battery used by Nissan, BMW and other car companies. But no matter which one, cobalt is an indispensable material, and there is no substitute so far. Cobalt plays an important role in improving the energy density of batteries, and the energy density of batteries is closely related to the battery life of electric vehicles. Therefore, cobalt is favored at the moment when electric vehicles are vigorously promoted all over the world, but it is just following the trend. Generally speaking, the battery of a smartphone contains 6 grams of cobalt, the battery of a laptop computer contains 33 grams of cobalt, and the power battery of an electric vehicle needs to contain as much as 15 kilograms of cobalt. As the demand for cobalt continues to rise, the stable supply of 100,000 tons of annual output seems to be unable to match the demand. In recent years, the supply gap of cobalt ore is increasing, and the price of cobalt is also rising. The advent of the era of electric vehicles has launched an unprecedented growth period for cobalt. There was a time when cobalt cost less than $30 a kilogram. However, since the fourth quarter of last year, cobalt has risen to about US$60 per kilogram. At the beginning of this year, the international transaction price of cobalt even rose to US$94 per kilogram, the highest in history. The reason is that, like lithium, cobalt has become the latest manufacturing material to benefit from lithium batteries for electric vehicles due to the huge demand for power batteries in the entire automotive industry. With the rapid development of the field of new energy vehicles, more car companies have entered this field. Many established auto giants have also begun to invest in electric vehicles. The entire electric vehicle market will continue to expand, and the demand for batteries will also further expand. If this happens, the price of cobalt will continue to soar in the next few years. It is obvious that the current global auto industry has entered the battle for the battery raw material supply chain. This year, BMW took the lead in signing a 10-year supply contract for lithium and cobalt raw materials for electric vehicle batteries. At the same time, the Volkswagen Group is also increasing the layout of the battery supply chain to avoid a shortage of raw materials. However, the development of things is far from that simple. For the world, the total reserves of cobalt resources are mainly concentrated in Congo, Australia, Cuba and other countries, about 7 million tons, which are widely distributed, and the content is relatively high compared to many other metals. Not high. In addition to the problem of the resource itself, the influence of the current situation has also made cobalt ore more precious. Due to the long-term unstable political situation in the Congo, there are great unstable factors in its mineral export policy. In 2007, the Congo introduced a policy of restricting cobalt ore and primary products. In addition, the current market demand for electric vehicles is far higher than production. According to data on cobalt raw materials traded last year, slightly more than half of the cobalt has flowed into the rechargeable battery industry, while in earlier years, the proportion was only 20%. The two major problems of shortage of supply and the country of origin have increased the demand for cobalt in the global market, causing its price to remain high and even hit new highs.Also read:https://www.aimeno.com/lithium-battery-pack/197.html Back then, when fuel vehicles were in power, a country could be as rich as an enemy by sitting on oil. Now, with the vigorous development of electric vehicles, is it possible that the cobalt winner will win the world in the future? Such a situation is definitely not what car companies want to see. Batteries already account for a large proportion of the production cost of electric vehicles, up to 50%. If the price of cobalt continues to rise, it will inevitably affect the car companies. Production costs will even affect the terminal selling price of electric models. In order to solve the problem of cobalt battery raw materials, in order not to rely on more and more expensive cobalt on the basis of improving battery energy density, many new energy car companies and battery manufacturers will naturally not sit still. They are developing in the direction of "cobalt-free". Taking Tesla as an example, "Iron Man" Musk once said that Tesla hopes to reduce the use of cobalt from 3% to 0%. At present, it has become an industry consensus to increase the proportion of nickel in ternary lithium batteries. Many manufacturers have tried to change the proportion of the material formula of the battery cathode, changing the ratio of nickel/cobalt/manganese from 6:2:2 to 8:1:1. NCM111 and NCM523, which were commonly used in the past, have higher nickel content. It is now shifting to NCM622, NMC811 and NCA with higher nickel content. However, such an adjustment is destined to put forward higher requirements for both the hardware and software of the battery. How to make the "cobalt-free" battery still achieve high energy density and safety factor level is obviously crucial. All in all, "cobalt-free" batteries still need a long research and development time, and cobalt is still an essential battery material before it is completely replaced. With the rapid development of the new energy vehicle market and the increasing demand for batteries for electric vehicles, the demand for cobalt will certainly not decline, and the price will continue to rise. So far, it has been very difficult to barely ensure a stable supply. Before the battery material supply crisis broke out completely, and under the coercion of the rising price of cobalt metal, it is obviously more and more important to vigorously develop "cobalt-free" batteries, and it is urgent.