Five charts to start your day
The electric vehicle revolution is here...
Before long we will all be driving electric vehicles (EVs). The revolution is here, and there's no stopping it. Or is there?
Yesterday, I showed you a data visualisation from Visual Capitalist that revealed the high cost of electric vehicle batteries. Unlike the batteries in smartphones or laptops, these batteries are thousands of times larger. They require vast amounts of costly battery metals, such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt.
The result? Perhaps a touch of irrational exuberance as battery metal prices skyrocketed during the pandemic.
However, that trend now appears to have ended. China, the world's second-largest economy, is experiencing a slowdown. Fewer electric vehicles are being purchased by Chinese consumers. Consequently, battery metal prices are dropping rapidly. The following chart illustrates this trend, showing a significant drop in lithium prices.
Battery metal prices fall on cooling Chinese EV sales
Source: Financial Times
But it doesn’t stop there. This is just the demand-side part of the story. There is also a vast oversupply of battery metals across the whole market, as this second chart shows.
