Lithium prices, page-298

My educated guess as you imply very strongly, is that we sales will be okay. Historically, car sales do take a hit with such recessionary events as seen below. Those hits are probably not as bad as scare campaigns may allude to, but as you mention there is so much more to the story.



However, I think ICE OEM will make a bigger deal out of this than it is. Just like many have been hiding the impact of the Osborne effect on chip shortages, I think many will extend the growth excuse to recessionary impacts. We all know the real reason don't we? As can be seen below, a dip in car sales is already forecasted even without a recession and this impact is happening. Management won't be able to hide the truth for too long.






The ESG mandates should keep batteries moving forward regardless with transitions tacking place if the opportunity arises. While EV sales should remain strong, lets say sales go down, this leaves capacity for commercial sales to grow (trucks etc). What's holding back Tesla semi? No access to batteries. How can transport companies fight inflation, by flipping the bird to diesel and truck maintenance costs. All the big organisations have started to see the calc of how much money can be saved and have been putting in the orders. Holding the orders back is access to batteries. If your competition is transitioning and saving costs, you must as well or you won't be able to compete on price. Every 6 months the amount of people that I talk to who are now holding off waiting for the right EV for them is growing substantially. Instead of upgrading they are just waiting. For each one this is lost dollars for the ICE OEM.

Transitioning to EVs is so important for national security as we are just learning. Everything would come to a halt if oil stops flowing the way it should. China sees this, Europe sees this and more of the world will too. As Stephen90 keeps showing, China is doubling its efforts to keep EV growth stronger for longer. They understand the importance. Don't worry over time we would too.

As you keep saying AOF, low prices are great buying opportunities. In my humble opinion.