Good News & Bad News, page-36250

I’m going to give this a go but would appreciate some input on assumptions / updating figures.


A lot of chat about oversupply vs demand at the moment. Bulls vs bears. Manipulator believers vs market forces evangelists.


Here are some numbers I’ve found. Please correct me where I’m wrong and add your own suggestions / updates as you see fit.


According to Clean Technica EV sales made up 18% of global sales in 2023.


Moodys has global car sales (Forcasted @ 9th Nov for 2023) at 87.3mn units.




18% of 87.3m units is 15.7mn units.


So what’s the average battery size? It seems to be around 40 kWh. If battery sizes are increasing we’ll also consider cars being built with the 2023 lithium supply to have bigger batteries say 60kWhs.


The source I’ve found says there is around 62.5 kg in a 100 kWh Tesla model S battery. So 0.625 kg/kWh. Or 25kg’s for our 40kWh average and 37.5kg for our 60kWh (would appreciate others input on this rough fudge).


So how much lithium was/will be produced in 2023? One source says 1.21m tonnes of LCE in 2023 will be produced.




(MW = molecular weight).


Li2O is MW=29.9 (about) and Li2CO3 is MW=73.9 (about), so 1 tonne of Li2O is 73.9/29.9=2.47 tonnes of Li2CO3.


So if we have 1.21m tonnes of lithium carbonate it would be about 498,878 tonnes lithium oxide. Say we lose 10% in refining - 440,890 tonnes lithium.


So, what ball park is our supply and demand in?


40kWh option.


25kgs per car x 15.7m units = 392,500 tonnes


60kWh option


37.5kgs per car x 15.7m units = 588,750 tonnes


So @ 40kWh average battery size we’re ~10% under


However, @ 60kWh average battery size were 33% over.


So we can see the under/oversupply assumption is very sensitive to average battery size AND how much is lost in refining LCE - I said 10% but would appreciate some input.


I think this shows how easily some people can get to over supply vs under supply depending on your calc inputs. The truth might be it’s a lot closer, and given the growth in demand vs pending drop off in supply if the price keeps falling, I would imagine under supply is just around the corner if it it’s here already.


Please update with your own assumptions. GLTAHs DYOR.