Tesla battery Shortage, page-67

Volkswagen AG plans to at least double the share of its sales that are fully electric this year, with the high end of its target range suggesting it could come close to Tesla Inc.’s expected global deliveries.

The German carmaker aims for battery-electric vehicles to be 6% to 8% of sales this year, up from about 3% in 2020, according to a presentation by Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess that was published on VW’s website.

VW sold more than 9.3 million vehicles worldwide last year. If deliveries are flat in 2021 -- a conservative assumption -- and 8% of sales are EVs, the company will sell roughly 745,000 battery-powered autos. Tesla delivered almost 500,000 cars last year and expects more than 50% growth in 2021, implying it will hand over at least 750,000 vehicles.

Doing the rough numbers, VW will increase their fully electric production by 470,000. Which is around how many Tesla built in 2020. VW make more hybrids so throw them on top. Only 10-15% of natural graphite produced last years was used for EV production.

The above EV numbers and below graphite production numbers don't add up unless the 1m EV increase in 2021 will be met by synthetic or natural graphite is diverted away from traditional uses.

I think this might have already been posted.

After increasing in 2018 and 2019, global natural graphite production has been adversely affected by covid-19 in 2020, with mines being placed either under care and maintenance or temporary suspension due to lockdowns and restrictions.

According to analytics firm GlobalData, while output has declined by 15.4% to 952.6kt in 2020, it is expected that natural graphite production will increase by 7.6% in 2021 to 1,025.5kt. China, the world’s largest producer, is expected to produce 665kt of natural graphite over the year. This represents a decline of 5% versus 2019 due to covid-19 restrictions, mainly during the first quarter of 2020 when several mines and plants had to temporarily cease production activities.

Mozambique, the second-largest producer in 2019, is expected to see graphite output fall from 100kt to 20kt, placing the country sixth overall out of world production.

“The reduction is due to the Balama graphite project operated by Australia’s Syrah Resources being suspended due to restrictions and lower EV demand, with no production at all since April 2020,” said Vinneth Bajaj, senior mining analyst at GloblaData. “The project is well-positioned to commence operations once the market conditions improve.”

Beautiful picture of Balama