"need to overlay the demand graph"ok - here is my attempt....

"need to overlay the demand graph"

ok - here is my attempt.

Instead of demand, I overlaid EV sales - which I took from onetricky at https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/72058285/single
Also, I interpolated that data to 2028. In the chart below the vertical boxes represent sales in each calendar year - I assume up to 2023 they are actual sales.
I did the interpolation for years 2024-25-26-27 as described here https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/72120694/single.
These are the numbers - I have added the green line for an estimate of LCE required, at an average of 50kg per car:

	year	sales mill (LHS)	LCE tonnes (RHS)	LCE increase YoY
1	2020	3.3	165,000
2	2021	6.6	330,000	165,000
3	2022	10.5	525,000	195,000
4	2023	13.8	690,000	165,000
5	2024	17.5	874,782	184,782
6	2025	21.7	1,082,805	208,023
7	2026	26.2	1,311,602	228,797
8	2027	31.1	1,555,298	243,696
9	2028	36.1	1,806,945	251,647

Viewing these two charts together is very interesting. What I would like to know is what is the lag time from selling spod, converting to LCE, etc to selling cars whose batteries are sourced from that spod. I don't know - say it is one year. Then the chart tells me that the automakers paid for the batteries in the 2023 cars from the spod in 2022, when the price was at peak. Then in 2023 they bought more spod for their 2024 car sales - and it is a lot more - to supply 3.7mill cars more. If the average car has 50kg LCE, then they should have bought 184,000 extra tonnes of LCE. Now, during 2024 they will need an extra 208,000 tonnes LCE for the 2025 cars.

Where is this extra LCE coming from?

Does anybody know how much LCE has been produced each year?