G’dday hotcoppers, and best wishes to those of you interested in...

G’dday hotcoppers, and best wishes to those of you interested in this company becoming successful. The others can just bug..r off.

The two timely posts IMO by lesv and KerrAvon just above coincided with the research I have been doing to understand the dynamics of the EV market, because, obviously, it soaks up a large percentage of all the lithium produced, and that is our business - we produce lithium.

No doubt you noticed that a lot of the media, and HC posts, are extremely anti EVs, that EVs are rubbish, or have no future. Usually they draw examples from USA. Even recently: at lunch a couple of very good friends of mine were telling me how EV sales are drying up all over the world, and in China there are huge lots of unsold EVs, the Chinese economy is going bad, etc.

There are people that desperately want PLS to fail. It doesn't happen in most other places, but it does here on the stock market and HC. For example, if I started a business for a coffee shop, a laundromat, a tax accountancy, a dentist, I would not get a lot of people saying, look at what Giobria does – it is sh.t. The Commonwealth bank does not criticise Westpac, BHP doesn’t criticise Fortescue, but it happens here. (oh, I just saw on TV Mr Albanese sticking it into Mr Dutton - sorry, it happens in politics too).

Some people say EVs and Lithium are sh.t and are trying to ram it down our throats. Why the *** do they care? They can drive whatever they like. I don't like SUVs, but I don't say SUVs are rubbish (even though they take up too much parking space). They are a bunch of immoral, lowlife, ***s. Anyway, sorry, now that I got that off my chest, I hope you find the following useful.

As there is a huge chasm of belief between those who are positive and those negative about EVs, I went searching for stats that might explain this. I noticed that most of the negativity comes from USA. More than anybody else, most Americans love their big powerful ICE cars, and not a few hate EVs with a passion. Why is that?

The following two charts from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country are old, but the relativities are still useful.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country

Apart from the obvious large market sizes of China, Europe and US, notice that California on its own is 5^th. The second chart is even more telling: US has only 6.2 EVs per 1000 people – waaaay behind the rest of the world (except China). But California has much more – 27.4. I calculated that the rest of US, outside California, has 3.64 – way way way behind everybody else. So, apart from the Californians, the Americans have next to no interest in EVs.

The figures for California make sense. California is where the movement for clean fuel efficient cars started many decades ago. We have to thank them for their progressive laws that forced automakers to improve their vehicles. So now they are continuing on that path.

California is the most populous state, followed by Texas. But the Californians are wealthier:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP

State or federal district	Nominal GDP at current prices 2023 (millions of U.S. dollars)		Annual GDP change at current prices (2022–2023)		Real GDP	Nominal GDP per capita		% of national
					growth rate
	2022	2023			(2022–2023)	2022	2023	2022	2023
California	3,641,643	3,862,171	220,528	6.1%	2.1%	$92,190	$100,038	14.69%	14.11%
Texas	2,402,137	2,563,508	161,371	6.7%	5.7%	$78,456	$85,110	8.69%	9.37%
New York	2,048,403	2,152,262	103,859	5.1%	0.7%	$104,344	$110,781	8.11%	7.86%
Florida	1,439,065	1,579,503	140,438	9.8%	5.0%	$62,446	$70,557	5.37%	5.77%
Illinois	1,025,667	1,082,968	57,301	5.6%	1.3%	$82,126	$87,033	4.11%	3.96%
Pennsylvania	911,813	965,067	53,254	5.8%	2.2%	$71,160	$75,189	3.67%	3.53%

Here are the top oil producers, by country and the top US states:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production

https://www.statista.com/statistics/714376/crude-oil-production-by-us-state/

Country/State	Oil Dec 23 bbl/day
United States	13,295,000
Russia	10,126,000
Saudi Arabia (OPEC)	8,950,000
Canada	4,971,000
Iraq (OPEC)	4,375,000
China	4,172,000
Iran (OPEC)	4,084,000
Brazil	3,585,000
United Arab Emirates (OPEC)	3,300,000
Kuwait (OPEC)	2,644,000
Texas	5,512,315
New Mexico	1,828,863
North Dakota	1,185,575
Colorado	454,011

Two things to notice: US is the world’s biggest oil producer, and Texas on its own would rank fourth in the world. Plus, from https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/wells“The number of producingwells in the United States reached a high of just over 1 million (1,031,256)wells in 2014 but declined to 919,246 wells by the end of 2021 and continued todecline in 2022 to 912,962 wells).”

Also, the cost ofpetrol in US is much cheaper than all of Europe and in much of the restof the developed world: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_price_rankings?itemId=24

rank		USD		rank		USD		rank		USD
1	Hong Kong (China)	3.07 $		26	Hungary	1.71 $		51	Jamaica	1.34 $
2	Finland	2.10 $		27	New Zealand	1.69 $		52	Armenia	1.33 $
3	Singapore	2.10 $		28	Serbia	1.68 $		53	Sri Lanka	1.32 $
4	Albania	2.08 $		29	Poland	1.65 $		54	Nepal	1.31 $
5	Netherlands	2.08 $		30	Croatia	1.65 $		55	South Africa	1.25 $
6	Denmark	2.07 $		31	Czech Republic	1.64 $		56	Australia	1.25 $
7	Greece	2.06 $		32	Lithuania	1.64 $		57	India	1.25 $
8	Switzerland	2.06 $		33	Luxembourg	1.63 $		58	Cuba	1.24 $
9	Uruguay	2.01 $		34	Slovenia	1.58 $		59	South Korea	1.21 $
10	Norway	1.99 $		35	Mauritius	1.53 $		60	Turkey	1.21 $
11	France	1.96 $		36	Kenya	1.53 $		61	China	1.18 $
12	Italy	1.94 $		37	Romania	1.51 $		62	Georgia	1.17 $
13	Ireland	1.91 $		38	Cyprus	1.51 $		63	Philippines	1.17 $
14	Israel	1.91 $		39	Costa Rica	1.50 $		64	Canada	1.17 $
15	Germany	1.89 $		40	Morocco	1.50 $		65	Thailand	1.13 $
16	United Kingdom	1.88 $		41	Bulgaria	1.50 $		66	Japan	1.09 $
17	Belgium	1.88 $		42	Bosnia And Herzegovina	1.47 $		67	Brazil	1.07 $
18	Estonia	1.86 $		43	Peru	1.46 $		68	Bangladesh	1.05 $
19	Portugal	1.85 $		44	North Macedonia	1.45 $		69	Uzbekistan	1.03 $
20	Palestine	1.83 $		45	Malta	1.45 $		70	Pakistan	1.02 $
21	Latvia	1.82 $		46	Jordan	1.42 $		71	Panama	0.98 $
22	Sweden	1.79 $		47	Mexico	1.42 $		72	United States	0.96 $
23	Slovakia	1.74 $		48	Chile	1.40 $		73	Taiwan	0.95 $
24	Austria	1.74 $		49	Moldova	1.39 $		74	Vietnam	0.94 $
25	Spain	1.73 $		50	Ukraine	1.35 $		75	Colombia	0.94 $

Comparatively, it is fairly cheap in Australia too. (If you think about it, the Europeans have really put a price on carbon!)

So it seems to me that the Americans are tied to oil, and it has been part of their culture for the last century, just like the Asians with rice, the Italians with pasta, the French with champagne etc. In Australia we are trying to wean ourselves off coal, but there are many objections, and it seems the same with the Americans and oil. They have been brought up in a culture of big powerful cars, DIY customisation, hot rods, dragsters, and the “largest single-day sporting event in theworld, the Indianapolis 500“ with cheap abundant petrol.

Their economy revolves around oil and provides much employment – the oil companies have capitalised on it, and they have convinced most of the public - apart from Californians - that they do not need EVs, and worse: that EVs are bad. (And Australians too, as we are closer to US than Europe in many ways

Next I am looking at car statistics. This is quite complex and its early days for me as I am assembling data from different sources that report things differently. But looking at them, and with the data I have presented above, I am of the opinion that the auto car industry in US is in big trouble. They really need to pull a rabbit out of the hat (maybe the car manufacturers are yet to divulge their secret projects?).

Basically, Americans only like their own cars, and the rest of the world doesn't like american cars. Although the US is a very large producer, the cars they export are mostly made by foreign companies' factories in US - even BMW's biggest factory is in US and most of its production is exported! I will provide more info later. Meanwhile it seems to me that, apart from Tesla, the american companies dismissed EVs, failed to design EVs properly from the ground up, and now are way behind.

The US is out on a limb - isolating itself yet again - producing cars only for themselves, and putting large tariffs on foreign cars even though they have very low penetration. They even had to protect the production of their own much loved pickup trucks with tariffs: https://vocal.media/wheel/is-toyota-hilux-pickup-banned-in-america "Chicken Tax is the reason why you cannot purchase a Toyota Hilux in America. The U.S. government imposes a 25 percent tax tariff on imported light trucks, like the Hilux"

Here is a quote from https://en.leapmotor.com/LeapmotorAbout/index - this is what the US companies failed to do:
"We approach EVs as advanced electronic products, imbued with intelligent features and subject to rapid product iterations, all within the context of the evolving automotive landscape, where vehicles are transforming from mere modes of transportation into intelligent mobile spaces."
(Isn't that similar when in the 70's Japanese cars were fitted with more accessories as standard?)

One conclusion I can draw from this is that we should ignore any commentary from most non-Californian Americans as they have firmly held beliefs about ICEs which are more akin to religion.

As a parting thought here is a table I am building up from various sources - the states listed are from https://www.marketwatch.com/guides/insurance-services/electric-vehicle-statistics-2024/ they are the states with the most and least adoption of EVs. I have added a few extra ones (not shaded) because of high population or high production of oil. Make of it what you will. I intend to follow up one day.