Running discussion on SP, page-35106

hey mate quickly read thru, thanks

if offtake is not fixed then how on earth can you get finance for $550-600M USD? Period.

it’s too uncertain for financiers, which is why there is now a predicament doing offtake so close to lows in lithium market generally, in my view

I don’t see financiers will accept floating pricing in what is considered to be a high risk jurisdiction, that’s now 2 major areas of risk.

Because of macro political risks I still think it is premature to say the ev revolution is full steam ahead in 2021.

News out of the UK and Europe supports things but policies can quickly change where bigger priorities emerge or a different narrative supplants green energy theme.

Covid was one such narrative. War would be another. But economic crisis would be another again. There is an economic crisis 10 x greater than the GFC coming in my opinion.

Markets are overvalued and when Aust property has actually gone UP in many areas (due to lack of sellers - low interest rates) despite more than a million job losses and despite mortgage freezes and commercial rent freezes and due to all the free money in circulation you know there is going to be an almighty bust soon enough.

Money printing by central banks is at all time highs. Keynesian economics on steroids.

US now entering the most dangerous time for Covid and (winter) lockdowns could occur as vaccines not likely to be widely available.

Either way, at a certain point countries that have printed money will run out of bonds to sell and money to print. Money borrowed now is money that can’t be borrowed later. So that means a major credit squeeze could be coming in the future.

ev revolution depends on a few things:

(1) global cooperation (this has been at risk for some time and risks have intensified in the past 12 months)

(2) consumer appetite (which in my opinion just isn’t there - people would rather pay down personal debt during uncertain times than buy an EV)

(3) profitability (what happens if governments can’t afford to incentivise the EV revolution because all that cash has already been used to address covid and recovering from covid? If governments can’t incentivise it and people can’t afford it (because household debt is very high) then how can the ev revolution even be profitable?)

at the end of the day it is best to think about the economics. Do most Australians drive around in new cars? Or second hand? Do most US denizens drive new cars? Or second hand? If most people can’t afford new cars they certainly can’t afford an EV.


even just think about the PRACTICAL side of things:

Susan shares a 3 bed apartment with 2 others. The apartment has one car space, but the 2 others are required to park on the street. Where / when / how can they recharge their EV?

Tom & Mary throw a big BBQ and invite some of Tom’s work colleagues and their families over. There are 80 in attendance and about 16 cars. If all are EVs, where do they park and how do they charge?

Lisa works at a local cafe on Main Street. Despite her salary of $43,000 pa and exorbitant rent and student loans from that arts degree doubling in music and French literature she was all excited about getting an ev to save the planet. The only problem is she has no charging infrastructure at her 1 bed apartment and there is no where to park her car on Main Street because none of the small commercial landlords have put in ev charging at the back of shops and even then there is no charging on the street. The only place nearby is a single multi-storey ev parking lot (that the locals fought the developer on and lost) but it costs $70 per day, which would be 30% of her pay from the shift. Lisa can go to a servo to recharge but she is tired of having to do this 3 times each week. She is losing 1.5 hours of her week going to the servo to recharge her car. Lisa is staring to think her car is becoming a lot like a bad smartphone that loses its battery before the day is over.