Thanks Ru2-good advice.
Mate as usual, whatever the naysayers say, I am again just being conservative with my 8 kgs per battery for EV cars. It's still currently between 10-12 kgs per battery on average in a car. But Im generously presuming the growth of 811 and 622 so I'm reducing it. - its easy to check yourself on the internet.
The cobalt content of and EV truck or bus however is more like 18-20kgs. Last year 380,000 electric busses were sold globally (roughly 7,500 tons of Co)
China alone however has now stated a target to try to will make ALL its bussses (and taxis) electric by 2020. (in just over a year) there are over 1,200,000 existing busses to be replaced.
China is already adding 9,500 new electric busses every 5 weeks -that more than all of London's bus fleet (im guessing here) probably most of Australia whole bus fleet every 5 weeks!! ........
(see article :China is adding a London-sized electric bus fleet every five weeks ...
https://www.weforum.org/.../china-is-adding-a-london-sized-electric-bus...)
1,200,000 new busses alone in China needs another 24,000 tons of cobalt. Then they reckon by 2025 they will need that many each year for replacements and growth. Thats just China busses (not Chinese taxis not cars etc...) that alone will take out one third of todays supply of Cobalt available for EV's.
In total there are 11 million busses in the world today. its anticipated at least 50% will be electric by 2025. So Thats another 110,000 tons of cobalt needed (about the current worlds total annual Co supply)- and that just for busses. never mind everything else.!!
we just have to wait out this current cobalt price correction as the market consolidates its recent price jump over the last year (rember its now settling at 200% higher than 2 years ago) and then wait for the next leg up -which is coming - I just don't know when !! id guess in about a year.
Also it looks like substituting the cobalt out the battery is even harder: Look at the recent story in the FT "Electric cars: the race to replace cobalt | Financial Times"
about how Europe is trying to cut cobalt from car batteries due to the comming shortage- they say it will take at the very least 20 years! - as the article opens:
"To quote a battery engineer: “For the European auto companies to change over to electric vehicles is like turning a battleship. And it’s a battleship with a mutinous crew.”
(20min delay)