Ramp up of PLS 5th Ship, page-102

As I am not a holder here like you this will be my final post here, albeit having explained stuff here I will probably use it elsewhere etc etc. I personally don't think non-holders should be clogging up threads they don't hold shares in, but a post or two over time is ok but not too many as don't want to overstay your welcome.

To yourself - My follow up posts on this thread detail my view on what the2 million EV sales actually allude to - they appear to be passenger vehiclesales. Others, like @Dr_Manhatten might actually have far better datathan me there btw.

I looked at your data and they accord with the data I sawfor US sales, which I linked in subsequent posts. Obviously the dataindicates the majority of passenger vehicle EV sales are occurring outside theUSA albeit the US is an ok market in any event.

I posted herein based on the research I did and on the thread, but the commentaround my 6% grade spodumene estimates per 1 million vehicles is based on50kg LCE in the battery, butmaybe the better guess is a battery size of 50 KWh and LCE content of45kg. So to rephrase, my earlier post every 1,000,000 additionalpassenger EVs would result in additional LCE of 45,000 which requires in effectan additional 340,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate (still slightly biggerthan PLS's stage 1 development). (i.e. Not much difference to my previous view btw and outcome).

Your question here might be relevant to otherposters as they to are assuming close to average 50kg LCE in a battery forpassenger vehicles (average, noting some batteries are bigger and some aresmaller)

One thing you are correct is it actually is very difficult getting data onbattery size and kg lithium content in the batteries. Battery size/needon a per kWh basis at the end of the day relates to distance and I suspect inthe US you might want larger batteries to go longer distances before recharging(like Oz) than say what you might need in Europe for example. In the link below, battery sizes for full electric vehicles differ btw butgoing through the list you can see some vehicles having battery sizessignificantly above 50 kWh and some significantly below that to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_battery

The size of the battery effects range, an obvious point. For example amodel S Telsa 100 kWh battery can go 500km before recharge whilst a Nissan Leaf30 kWh battery can only go 151 km before recharge needed.
See:https://www.ergon.com.au/network/smarter-energy/electric-vehicles/electric-vehicle-range
and https://www.electriccarsguide.com.au/buyers-guide/how-far-can-electric-cars-travel/

Now the estimates banded around on kg in the literature are generally based onpure lithium equivalent in batteries, and surprisingly are hard to comeby. Because lithium carbonate grades 18.8 Li, in effect saying that 5.3tonnes of LCE is required to produce 1 tonne of pure lithium for yourbattery. Referhere to understand this conversion - https://www.weare121.com/blog/a-lithium-primer/

Thisarticle - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehicle-battery-paul-martin/- provides the interesting analysis, but this is the quote that makes sense toome: "The best estimate is around 160 g of Li metalin the battery per kWh of battery,or if you prefer, about 850 g of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) inthe battery per kWh."

In that same link the following is also said: "This source does indeed give some data: itclaims that a Nissan Leaf battery has about 4 kg of lithium init. Assuming the author is (or was) talking about the 24 kWh nominalcapacity Leaf battery, that’s about167 g of lithium (in the battery) per kWh of nominal capacity, which it turns out isn’tfar off the nominal value for Li ion batteries when you dig further into theliterature."

Now 4kg lithium * 5.3 getsyou to 21.2 kg LCE. Divide that by 24 kWh and you get 0.88 LCE perkWh. The irony is he bags the GS estimates, which working backwards gets you to 0.9 kgLCE per kWh of installed battery capacity (Tesla 63kg LCE/70kWh) but, at the endof the day, essentially recommends close to that figure anyway.

The above essentially matches the conclusion from the following article aswell - page 16:' http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/230991/local_230991.pdf

Finally, I don't consider myself an expert on this at all (and am learning like everyone else) and certainly like you seek tounderstand the conversions etc etc.

The real key to any estimates in understanding lithium in batteries is working out that lithium batteries cannotoperate at 100% efficiency. As efficiency in batteries improve then thatcan also impact lithium needs in batteries. The theoretical minimum LCEcontent at 100% battery efficiency is stated to be 385 grams per kWh, and that is a simple mathematical equation to follow, butbecause they cannot operate at theoretical efficiency then LCE requirements perbattery general are just over two times the theoretical need.

This isbest explained in this paper, including calculation methodology, at pages 3 to 4 of this link given this comment inthat paper (and noting the data above):"The theoretical figure of 385 grams of LithiumCarbonate per kWh battery capacity is substantially less than our guidelinereal-world figure of 1.4 kg of Li2CO3 per kWh." LiCO3 is lithium carbonate. http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/How_Much_Lithium_Per_Battery.pdf

And from what I can see, and certainly from the links above (despite an argumenthere or there) not one of those LCE content per kWh estimates are anywhere near the theoreticalminimum.If other have an opinion/understanding on ion and electron exchanges inlithium ion batteries and how that translates to LCE inputs please share. It is essentially to do with batteries going beyond theoretical minimum based on Coulomb counting.
https://www.powertechsystems.eu/home/tech-corner/lithium-ion-state-of-charge-soc-measurement/

At the end of the day understanding this is a key to doing yourforecasts, but at the moment fair to say 0.9 kg LCE per kWh (of installedbattery capacity) appears to be the go.

All IMO