Good News & Bad News, page-178

My forecasts are based on EV growth rates of 44% from 2018 2.1 mill units (i.e. 1.44 ^ 5 x 2,100,000). As you are aware, EV growth rates over the past few years has been ~65% y-o-y. Thus, my calcs did not use battery factory capacity to arrive at my numbers, just EV demand at 0.9kg/kwh.

With regards to other LCE uses (excluding ESS), my forecasts were based on your 55% estimate on 280kt LCE demand in 2018, thus 154kt. Growth rate from this sector at 3.0% pa over 5 years to 2023 (i.e. 1.03 ^ 5 x 154,000 = 178,528t).

I think you will find that EV growth rates cannot sustain 65% y-o-y for ever. However, I cant see a slow down (as a percentage) of total vehicle sales for at least the next 7 to 10 years. Nonetheless, 1.9TWh by 2029 would supply ~30 mill EV's pa. If my maths is corect, thats 2.1 mill tonnes of LCE pa. Also, many of the OEM's are talking about owning autonomous fleets for ride sharing, etc where city peeps non longer own a car, and given the fact that EV's last longer than their ICE counterparts, you may see less overall new car sales globally, not to mention replacement batteries for those fleets every 8 to 10 years, with recycling probably playing a part as well.

Surely it cant be a bad strategy if you are a lithium miner oversupplying the market in the short term to make sure you are 1 of the 14 remaining miners globally that can participate in supplying that 2.1 mill tonnes pa for decades to come . Each mine producing equivalent of 150kt of LCE units per year, (roughly the nameplate capacity of PLS stage 1, 2 & 3 combined).

But once again, you are looking for the lithium mines to execute to perfection, while on the other hand assuming downstream battery supply chain will not, which IMO is having your cake and eating too. With regards to a recession, yes its likely if the trade war drags on, hense my 44% EV growth rates as opposed to current growth rates of 65%.