Where The Money Is In The Electric Vehicle Supply Chain: Part I - lithium air battery

"Nothing more complicated can alleviate the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future. ” —Ian E.
Electric vehicles, also known as electric vehicles, are the future of personal car technology and seem to be a foregone so far. EVs, e. g. , in the U. S.
, Has grown at a compound growth rate of 32% over the past four years (see here ).
According to IEA, the inventory of electric vehicles may reach 9-
20 million to 2020 and 40-
70 million to 2055.
Because the pace of technology adoption is accelerating.
1), it's not entirely surprising to assume that the adoption of electric vehicles will happen throughout the lives of our generation.
2017 could be a turning point in car electrified.
Evy Hambro, BlackRock World Mining Fund Manager, further said: "The biggest theme of investment in the next 10 or 15 years will be to move from burning cars to electric cars. ”Fig. 1.
The speed at which technology is adopted in the United States. S.
After the Black Stone (see here)
As investors, are we willing to follow the trend of this long-term trend, or are we picky about it?
The answer may seem obvious, but it will take a while.
Let's come here.
We have to admit that, because we have recently maintained a large position in the stone field, we subconsciously defend our oil long paper against any argument against it, and because of this prejudice, we have been skeptical about the rumors of electric vehicles, which makes us not realize the budding trend of car electrified earlier.
In the face of group thinking, we often take the opposite view, but the emergence of electric vehicles is more consensus (which is correct) than traditional wisdom (which is specious)
Against what is wrong is good on the contrary, against what is right is bad.
As the saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them.
To that end, we have three more questions to ask: Let's stop saying more, but give an overview of the electric vehicle industry, hoping to find the most promising part of the electric vehicle supply chain to prepare for a series of launch at the bottom
Research projects in individual companies in the field of electric vehicles.
The supply chain process of electric vehicles includes seven links such as raw material Mining (EDM), battery manufacturing, battery pack assembly, electric vehicle integrated manufacturing, electric vehicle sales, electric vehicle charging and service, and recycling electric vehicle components, battery in particular (Fig. 2).
We must point out that the same supply chain is also applicable to decentralized power storage applications, and the rise of such applications is a trend in parallel with automotive electrified.
Both trends are competing for the same or similar raw materials and helping each other in terms of expansion
In the battery manufacturing and recycling plant. Fig. 2.
The supply chain of electric vehicles, the author's own chart. Table 1.
Economic description of the supply chain of electric vehicles, author's table.
We find that the economic situation in some sectors may determine the lack of a sustainable competitive advantage.
The electric vehicle manufacturing sector tends to receive a lot of attention, some participants, suchg.
Tesla is the darling of Wall Street.
However, the lessons learned from ICE cars may indicate that free access will help achieve high profitability in the long run.
This was eloquently explained by Greenwald et al.
: "Without any force interfering with the entry process of a competitor, profitability will be driven to the level where the investment capital obtained by an efficient company does not exceed the" normal "return.
It is barriers to entry that create strategic opportunities, not its own differences.
"Even brands like Mercedes Benz (OTCPK: DMLRY) that are strong in people's minds cannot build an economic moat to ensure high profitability (see here ).
One may also find that sustainable competitive advantage is elusive for the battery packaging, electric vehicle charging, and service sectors, the former has weak negotiating power for suppliers and customers, and the latter is
Licensed infrastructure business.
Three paragraphs, I. e.
Battery manufacturing, sales of electric vehicles, battery recycling, etc. , can get a certain competitive advantage.
Battery key raw material suppliers have strategic choice points in the electric vehicle supply chain.
We will focus on this part below.
Batteries are the most important and the most expensive and heaviest individual components in electric vehicles (Fig. 3).
The battery consists of cathode, anode and electrolyte.
Progress has been made in battery technology by using different metals (Fig. 4);
Over the years, rechargeable batteries have moved from lead-acid (Gaston plan in 1859), nickel-cadmium (1899), and nickel-metal hydroxide (I. e. NiMH, the mid-
1980 s), lithium-
Ion (1977 commercialized in 1991) (Figure5). Fig. 3.
Battery for electric vehicles, modified by UL and weather images. Fig. 4.
The development of lithium batteries from 1970 to 2015 shows the cost of Li-(left axis of blue) and the energy density of weight (right axis of red)
Sony commercialized ion batteries in 1991.
Also shown in gray, the reference right axis is the weight energy density of Li-or LiAl-
Metal anode batteries for four cathode, which are out of the market due to safety issues or market appeal.
After this sourceFig. 5.
After upbatterycenter, the history of battery technology. com (see here). Fig. 6.
Researchers at the Berkeley lab found the role of oxygen oxidation in lithium
After Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, there are various types of redundant cathode.
The holy grail for battery manufacturers is lithium.
Air, also known as lithium O2, battery technology. The lithium-
The air battery eliminates the overheating problem and may bring a huge leap in specific energy;
Its theoretical ratio is 3.
5 KW/kg, 30 times the current-day Li-
When considering the total weight of the battery, the ion battery and gasoline are there.
This will allow the use of battery packs weighing only 400 of today's bulky electric vehicle batteries to travel 1/5 miles at a single charge, so, the widespread adoption of ICE cars and electric vehicles poses a real threat (see here) (Fig. 7). Fig. 7. Lithium-
Then there is the ion battery roadmap and nanotechnology. Fig. 8.
Chemical elements needed in lithium
Ion batteries modified after scientific notes.
To sum up, the current Li-
Ion technology requires raw materials including lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese and graphite, but in the future one may not find much less use of cobalt and graphite
Power generation batteries with better performance and lower cost (Fig. 8).
Driven by the progress of battery technology, mass production and the maturity of the supply chain, Li-
The ion battery in the battery or battery pack has been dropping in a fast and stable way.
Price of ordinary Li-
Since 2010, ion battery packs have dropped by more than 80% to less than $200 per kWh;
It is expected to be close to $100 per kWh by 2020 (Fig. 9).
The battery is either-
Electric car assemblers own houses like Tesla (TSLA)'s $5 billion "Gigabit factory 1" or OEM suppliers such as BASF, LG Chemical, Samsung SDI and PanasonicFig. 9.
The average battery pack Price compiled from here (2009), here and here data (upper panel );
(From 2010 to 2016), here. (2017 mid-
Annual figures and 2020E projected figures), after which estimated cost benefits are obtained from manufacturing, supply chain, technology and production.
Go to the second part here.
We will show our bottom at the Laurenson Institute. up, in-
Delve into some of the lithium, cobalt and graphite producers mentioned in this article to serve the subscription members of TUOH, the exclusive service we seek for the Alpha market.
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Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any of the stocks mentioned and no plans to start any positions in the next 72 hours.
This article was written by myself and expressed my views.
I have not received compensation (except for Seeking Alpha ).
I have no business relationship with any stock company mentioned in this article.
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