losing faith., page-26

I am mostly here for the lithium story though the other commodities are no slouches. It seems a very limited number of producers for an increasingly important metal. We could be seeing a supply squeeze along the lines of what happened with uranium in the last couple of years. Companies like GM and their suppliers will move quickly to lock in new sources if they are investing heavily in vehicles dependent on it, as consumption could explode if these have even moderate success. For example the Tesla car battery pack has the equivalent of more than 1500 handycam size Li-ion batteries (or about 400kg). Even if only a small proportion of vehicles end up using this technology, consumption could increase to many multiples of today's.

There is always the risk that the supply situation will lead to alternatives being sought but I'm not sure if there are any viable ones in the near term.