Automakers stress importance of battery metals

Major automakers Ford and Honda have stressed the importance of stable and affordable supply of battery raw materials for their ongoing electric vehicle development and rollout plans.

The two companies are represented at the world's biggest mining conference, Investing in African Mining, taking place in Cape Town.

Africa is the world's largest source of cobalt and manganese, essential ingredients in most lithium-ion batteries, and is expected to become a significant producer of lithium and graphite over the next few years.

Ford started to focus on lithium-ion battery technology in 2012 and has since reduced the cobalt input in its battery supply chain by around two thirds because of the metal's high cost and supply uncertainty, Ted Miller, the company's senior manager of energy storage strategy and research, said.

"We are increasingly substituting nickel and manganese for cobalt, but this means we will be watchful of the consumption of these metals," he said. South Korea's LG Chem produces battery cell technology for Ford's electric vehicle programme. Ford's objective is to reduce cobalt in its nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries to 10pc or lower.

"When we got into areas like lithium and cobalt, we realised we had a lot to learn. This includes ensuring ethical and sustainable supply chains for raw materials," Miller said.

While Ford is essentially a buyer of battery cell technology, its pathway forward is likely to involve collaboration through the supply chain, including battery cell producers and raw material suppliers.

"Ford has not reached the stage where we have to negotiate direct offtake agreements with raw material suppliers. We have had to invest significantly in vehicle electrification, but now we are at the stage where our suppliers have to make similar investments," he said. Some automakers, such as US-based Tesla and China's Great Wall Motors, have made direct offtake agreements with lithium producers.

Ford's objective is for its batteries to last the full life of the vehicles it produces, but it is also examining strategies to re-use and recycle batteries, including extracting valuable battery metals.

Outlining Honda's electric vehicle progress, Noriya Kaihara, a managing officer at the Japanese automaker, said the volume of cobalt and nickel in electric vehicle batteries is a big factor.

"If cobalt doubles in price, the cost of producing an electric vehicle goes up by around 7pc," he said, adding that lithium-ion batteries account for 35pc of the production cost of an electric vehicle, with 61pc of this cost coming from raw materials.

The challenge in the battery sector is to find a breakthrough to sharply increase the energy and power density in batteries to improve electric vehicle affordability, sustainability, convenience and efficiency, Kaihara said.

Japan is the global leader in the adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles with 30pc of the country's vehicles having some degree of electric substitution for traditional internal combustion engines. This compares with less than 4pc globally. It also produces around 40pc of global lithium-ion batteries.

Highlighting Africa's importance in the battery materials supply chain, Yoshihiro Seki, Japan's state minister for the economy, trade and industry, said Japan is expanding its relationship with African producers of battery metals, especially cobalt and natural graphite.

"Africa has the potential to be an important supplier to Japanese companies of cobalt and graphite. China is the world's biggest producer of graphite, so now is a good time for us to increase our co-operation with African producers," he said.

Syrah Resources' Balama project in Mozambique is the world's biggest exporter of natural graphite, and several other projects are being developed by mainly Australian companies in Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar.

Lithium projects are being developed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Zimbabwe.

Dependence on battery metal raw materials will be a new risk factor for the automotive industry, Seki said.