Banter and general comments, page-21958

Hi to the 54 LTH - if you are day trader or a shorter please ignore this, and at least do not respond.

Normally I would have posted this on the PLS thread, as I have a larger position there, but PLS is 64th on shortman's list, whereas CXO is 4th - so we are being bashed around a lot more.

From my previous post there are only 54 ppl here who declared themselves as LTHs. While some might have substantial positions, unfortunately it is only a drop compared to SS, MS and their friends, so it is very difficult for us to counteract them. The question everybody is asking, and not just here, is why are retail holders selling. I can't answer that - no point anyway - but here I am putting forward a case why one should not sell. (Mind you - this is not advice - I am giving you reasoning and facts, you use your intellect and make your own decision).

For every negative announcement/study/report about lithium or EVs there are many more that are positive. Just recently I saw some positive ones relating to India. Here are some:

Battery swapping giant
$3.4bill incentives for EVs
50GWh battery by 2027
Indian EV industry predicted 42% CAGR
batteries are a big business opportunity
EV industry in India

OK - there are many more - but why did I look at India???

India is at an interesting situation in its growth path. Currently its per capita GDP is only one fifth of China. Many negative articles have said EVs are too expensive, poor range, too long to recharge, can't tow a boat/caravan very far, etc. Are these criticisms really valid? Certainly for some people - eg SUVs are too big for my wife, she prefers a small car, some people like very powerful cars, some like station wagons, some prefer diesel, so no one model suits everybody. But the important thing is whether EVs will suit most people, not necessary everybody, and not even right now - I'll probably keep my current car for another 3 years, then most likely I'll get an EV.

Right. So I did some really FA, getting right down to basics. I went back to a data source I loved and last used 10 years ago - its founder Hans Rosling died about 6 years ago and it seems the current people in charge have not kept it up to date - nevertheless it is a fantastic site and there is a world of useful information: gapminder

I have put together 8 snapshots from gapminder - although these mostly cut out at 2019, they still show useful trends. I am comparing a mix of large population countries - developed and still developing (plus little Oz for fun).

The first thing to note is that (at 2019) per capita consumption of oil, coal, electricity and energy in general in the west is declining, but increasing in the poorer countries. OK - nothing surprising there, but the question is where is the extra energy going in the poorer countries? My guess was into motor vehicles and more modern houses (heating, air con, appliances, etc). To test this theory I tried to get historical sales of vehicles - unfortunately gapminder only has a couple of data points, I found a site - carsalesbase - but I got kicked out after I looked at a few countries unless I paid, so didn't get anything. However, this site had some data - http://mecometer.com/ - I have attached a table as well. The table covers 2000-2011 plus I added the last known figure (between 2019 and 2022) from wikipedia. Notice the trends:
- the richer countries have far more vehicles, but the rate of increase is slower
- India is about 8-10 years behind China, which increased nearly 2000%, whereas India increased 500%. Phenominal.

Now consider that India is starting from a very low base, the people are getting wealthier, and they will inevitably buy more vehicles. But, which ones?

Now look at the final two charts - about phones. The chart for cell phones shows that all countries behaved much the same. And the time of the fastest increase, 2005-2010, corresponds with the decline in land lines. But but but - the poorer countries, India in particular, never had many land lines anyway! So, they never wasted any money building a large phone network - they went straight to mobiles!

My conclusion? those two charts will apply very soon to ICEs and EVs. India will never build a large network of petrol stations, nor will the poorer countries! But their populations are huge, they are growing, and the future for EVs looks great! Looking at those two charts I think ICEs and EVs are at the same stage as the phones were around 1995.

I am hanging on to my shares!