Battery Demand Could Cause Lithium Shortage

In an article for Wall St. Daily, Tim Maverick reiterated the idea that demand for lithium from the electric vehicle battery market (and from Tesla’s (NYSE:TSLA) in particular) could cause a shortage for lithium in the near future.

As quoted in the publication:

The company is building a $5-billion lithium-ion battery plant in Nevada. By 2020, the gigafactory will be capable of producing 50 times the amount of batteries Tesla shipped in cars last year and 20 times the total of all lithium-ion batteries shipped in cars in 2013.

But all this lithium-ion battery manufacturing is going cause a shortage of a crucial mineral component of the batteries.

Lithium hydroxide is used as an active cathode in the batteries, and we could see a shortage by as soon as 2015.

Click here to read the full article.