I should have rephrased it in a better way. What I am trying to do is not question your conclusion or researching acumen (that is unquestionable), but as a matter of fact, I question everything and anything that comes out of china. It is a police state so it's not like anyone can waltz there and take pictures, ask questions, and independently verify the data that is coming out of there. It is highly manipulated, period.
Your price scenario, the POP, is still based on information that comes from china, and even then, let's assume that the POP is a MOM. For Jan, Feb, March, April, let's say it goes 1, 2, 4, 8, then drops to a 10 or 11 for May. That 10 or 11 in May is still better than the May of the previous year, regardless of the BEV/PHEV ratio. So any way you put it, the growth is just
growing.
BUT, the price of spod is heading the other way, and it's actually going
down. And I find it utterly ridiculous that it's because of an "oversupply." How is it possible for there to be a persistent, year long "oversupply" in the face of exponential growth? Not even all the DSO crap from Africa, the lepidolite trash, or even the brine from SA is adequately filling in that demand.
This article below just shows how much capital the ccp has sunk into the effort to make china a dominant force in the EV transition. It's my belief that they are doing anything they can to make sure it stays that way, including manipulating the price of spod. They know exactly what they are doing. They know this will kill off the competition, and they are helped by the sheer immobility of western governments.
More importantly, the sheer size of the subsidies mean that many of those miners and refineries can continue to operate in the face of enormous losses due to the collapse of the price of spod. And it's not like they have a choice either, unless they want to get sent to re-education camp.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-21/china-s-ev-makers-got-231-billion-in-aid-over-last-15-years
(20min delay)