Battery materials
Overview
Growth in global electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) production has put a spotlight on battery materials. While lithium-ion batteries dominate the current market, this is a rapidly emerging technology space where improved range or charge times can quicky shift industry sentiment and investment in a different direction.
Argus is at the forefront of battery materials pricing and reporting with coverage of common battery metals (lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite), industry-grade cathodes and black mass. As experts in specialty metals and rare earths, we future-proof our price assessment portfolio with a range of electronic metals crucial to the manufacture of technology deployed in modern vehicles.
Our Argus Battery Materials and Argus Non-Ferrous Markets services help businesses to understand these complicated supply chains, including price volatility and sustainability challenges around future demand.
Minor metals: Battery metals
As automakers continue to invest in electric vehicle production and power companies explore infrastructure that includes energy storage programmes, the metals contained in lithium-ion batteries supporting these products has attracted interest from investors, institutions and manufacturers alike.
Argus is well positioned to provide insight into price volatility, global supply and responsible material sourcing for all manufacturers and investors in this sector.
Highlights of Argus battery materials coverage
- Understand the context of significant price movements and industry trends with a weekly PDF that highlights the most important market news across lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and other common battery materials
- Mitigate risk and perform reliable forward planning with 1-year and 10-year forecasts across different battery metals, chemistries and industries
- Gain a competitive edge with industry-specific tools, such as the Black Mass Calculator that estimates the intrinsic value of different battery chemistries (including cathodes like NCM111, NCM523, LFP, NCA)
- Invest with confidence knowing Argus is IOSCO-compliant with over 50 years of experience delivering trusted price data and market intelligence
Latest battery materials news
Browse the latest market moving news on the global battery materials industry.
Quad grouping backs critical minerals co-operation
Quad grouping backs critical minerals co-operation
Sydney, 2 July (Argus) — The four-member alliance of the US, Australia, Japan and India — known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) grouping — has pledged to collaborate on securing and diversifying critical mineral supply chains, following a meeting of foreign ministers in Washington. The launch of the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative is a reflection of how the countries have become "deeply concerned" about the future reliability of critical minerals supply chains, especially non-market policies and practices for critical minerals, certain derivative products and mineral processing technology. Reliance on any single nation for critical minerals and derivative goods could enable economic coercion, price manipulation, and supply chain disruptions harming security, the Quad said. Guaranteeing access to ores and having the ability to process and refine such inputs to useable material is critical for all technologies and for all industries, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said. Progress needs to be made on a "diverse and reliable global supply chain" of critical minerals, he said. The official statement from the meeting did not identify which minerals the Quad is focusing on. Australia has identified 31 such minerals in its own policy, while a 2022 list from the US Geological Survey named 50 critical minerals . Capacity to secure supply of 36 of the 50 was discussed as part of the Quad meeting, Australian foreign minister Penny Wong said, without giving more details. The meeting comes three years after the Quad pledged to build supply chains for clean energy systems to counter supply chain dominance by China. Australia has attempted to use critical minerals access as a bargaining chip to avoid the Trump administration's planned tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium, but no deal has yet been reached on exemptions. By Tom Major Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
China's Putailai starts trial production of Si anodes
China's Putailai starts trial production of Si anodes
Beijing, 1 July (Argus) — Chinese new material producer Shanghai Putailai New Energy started trial production of its silicon-based anode material plant in Wuhu city in south China's Anhui province on 26 June. The Wuhu-based plant has a total of production capacity of 12,100 t/yr of silicon-based anode materials, including 10,000 t/yr of silicon-carbon anode materials and 2,100 t/yr of silicon oxide anode materials. Construction of the site started in April 2024 and was completed in December 2024. The firm expects output to be launched by the end of August 2025. Putailai sold 35,000t of anode materials in January-March. Its sales in 2025 are expected to exceed its sales of 132,311t in 2024. Putailai expects its production capacity of anode materials to reach 250,000 t/yr in 2025 and 350,000 t/yr in 2026, up from 200,000 t/yr in 2024, on the back of new capacities planned in Anhui, Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces. Putailai terminated its planned 100,000 t/yr plant in the north-central Sweden port city Sundsvall after failing to obtain approval from the Swedish government. Silicon-carbon anode material is a kind of newly developed silicon anode material used in lithium-ion battery, with a theoretical capacity of up to 4,000 mAh/g, compared with 340-470 mAh/g for natural graphite anode materials and 310-360 mAh/g for synthetic anode materials. Shipments of silicon anode material will increase to 81,900t in 2030, up from 5,300t in 2024, in line with the renewed demand from the consumer electronics, unmanned drones and power tools sectors, data from anode material producer C-One show. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Japan's Toyota starts building EV plant in Shanghai
Japan's Toyota starts building EV plant in Shanghai
Beijing, 27 June (Argus) — Japanese automaker Toyota started building an electric vehicle (EV) plant in Shanghai today, said the local government. Toyota established a subsidiary Lexus (Shanghai) New Energy in the Jinshan district of Shanghai in February to develop EVs and EV batteries. The company signed an agreement with the municipal government of Shanghai and the government of Jinshan district in April to move forward with this project. The plant aims to produce 100,000 EVs a year and to start delivering in 2027. Construction is expected to be completed in 2026. Toyota will be the sole owner of the new China-based firm — an unusual move as foreign automobile producers typically form a joint venture with a local car manufacturer. Tesla's Shanghai factory is the last wholly foreign-owned automaker in China. The Japanese firm's new venture in China and its moves in the US are part of the company's wider strategy to sell 1.5mn EVs by 2026. Its new Shanghai project aims to deliver its EV brand "swiftly" to Chinese customers. But Toyota's EV sales in China may face challenges in a highly competitive market, according to industry participants. China has more than 40 domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Lithium market oversupply could flip in 2026: Arcane
Lithium market oversupply could flip in 2026: Arcane
Singapore, 19 June (Argus) — The current state of oversupply in the lithium market could potentially be overturned from next year, given underestimated demand from battery energy storage systems (BESS) and electric trucks, according to Singaporean hedge fund management firm Arcane Capital Advisors. "We think that the supply deficit starts happening from 2026 onwards and then it continues to grow towards the end of the decade", said Arcane's director Lee Yuejer during the Mining Asia conference in Singapore on 19 June. "This is definitely contrary to what people in the market are saying." The firm forecasts lithium demand in 2030 to reach as high as 4.6mn t of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), including 2.4mn t from electric vehicles (EVs), 700,000t from electric buses and trucks, as well as 1.1mn t from BESS. It expects around 1.51mn t of demand in 2025 and 2mn t in 2026. Market consensus, including even the world's largest battery maker CATL's slightly more optimistic forecast, on the BESS sector size is "way off", said Lee. Arcane, citing its own model, expects the global BESS sector to reach 1.5-2.5TWh by the end of the decade, significantly higher than what it cited as a market consensus of 0.9TWh and CATL's forecast of 1.1TWh. "BESS is driven by basically solar and wind installations. What has happened in the past with solar is that forecasts of actual solar installations about five years into the future have all been off by a factor of 3-4 times," said Lee. "And the same thing is happening today," he added, with modelling indicating that BESS installations grow to 1.6-1.7TW by the end of the decade on around 1,600GW of solar installations, with the bulk of the solar installations from China. Solar and wind installations in China totalled 1,370GW last year, according to major Chinese solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturer Longi. But China's new solar PV installations could be lower at 215-255GW this year. China earlier this month also called for a stop to a years-long phenomenon of requiring new renewable energy projects to be equipped with ESS, which contributed to dampening market expectations of lithium demand from the energy storage sector. "The story for EVs, very simple, no new surprises. [But e-trucks are] something that is absolutely new and this is something that nobody else in the market, in the lithium space, has been talking about," he added. Arcane's model sees 2.5mn medium and heavy e-trucks sold in 2030, which will come with an average battery size of 340KWh - a few times more than that of a typical EV. Arcane forecasts lithium demand from e-trucks to grow "exponentially", reaching 630,000 t/yr of LCE by 2030, "equivalent to half the entire lithium market globally last year." "Unsustainable" Chinese supply that entered the market over the past few years has contributed to the lithium price "collapsing", said Lee. But as the market size grows, Arcane thinks Chinese pricing power will be eroded in the coming years as they can no longer easily "come in and flood the market like they did back then". By Joseph Ho Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
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