Batteries do much more than just power electric vehicles (EVs)—they also help determine their performance, service life, charging speed and costs. Inside the batteries, there are materials to consider. There’s the anode and a cathode. Inside the cathode is typically a copper-coated film made of nickel, copper, manganese and lithium.
Nickel, primarily used to produce stainless steel, is already one of the world’s most prominent metal markets, reaching a value of US$31.5bn in 2021. Looking forward, it’s expected that the market will reach US$43.8bn by 2027, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.57% during 2022-2027, according to market researcher consultants IMARC.
Turning nickel into battery-grade material is significantly energy-intensive. There are two types of nickel: sulphites and laterites. Laterites found in nickel pig-iron require environmentally damaging chemical processes to extract the material. An enormous amount of energy and electricity is invested in refining it into something usable. According to UBS financial services, the nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) cathode formulation used by the Chevy Bolt is expected to lean heavily on nickel in the coming years. It is predicted that nickel will make up 80% of the mass in lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide (NCA) and NMC cathodes used by companies such as Tesla and Chevy.
In the last few years, EV material shortages have been a significant topic—impacting just about everybody. Tesla, Volkswagen, Toyota and General Motors have all been forced to scale back production in 2022.
