Fortune Minerals : Cobalt News

The New York Times - February 8, 2022

Sales of cars powered solely by batteries surged in the United States, Europe and China last year, while deliveries of fossil fuel vehicles ...

the cars have fewer components.Over time, battery ingredients like lithium, nickel and cobalt could become more sought after than oil.

Booming in a depressed market, battery-powered vehicles are a plus for the climate but pose a big threat to carmakers and parts suppliers that are slow to change…Sales of cars powered solely by batteries surged in the United States, Europe and China last year, while deliveries of fossil fuel vehicles were stagnant. Demand for electric cars is so strong that manufacturers are requiring buyers to put down deposits months in advance. And some models are effectively sold out for the next two years…Battery-powered cars are having a breakthrough moment and will enter the mainstream this year as automakers begin selling electric versions of one of Americans' favorite vehicle type: pickup trucks. Their arrival represents the biggest upheaval in the auto industry since Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908 and could have far-reaching consequences for factory workers, businesses and the environment…While electric vehicles still account for a small slice of the market - nearly 9 percent of the new cars sold last year worldwide were electric, up from 2.5 percent in 2019, according to the International Energy Agency - their rapid growth could make 2022 the year when the march of battery-powered cars became unstoppable, erasing any doubt that the internal combustion engine is lurching toward obsolescence…The auto industry is on track to invest half a trillion dollars in the next five years to make the transition to electric vehicles, Wedbush Securities, an investment firm, estimates…Companies are planning more than a dozen new electric car and battery factories just in the United States…"It's one of the biggest industrial transformations probably in the history of capitalism," Scott Keogh, chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America, said in an interview. "The investments are massive, and the mission is massive."…Over time, battery ingredients like lithium, nickel and cobalt could become more sought after than oil. Prices for these materials are already skyrocketing, which could limit sales in the short term by driving up the cost of electric cars…The biggest beneficiary - and the biggest threat to the established order - is Tesla. Led by Elon Musk, the company delivered nearly a million cars in 2021, a 90 percent increase from 2020…Tesla is still small compared with auto giants, but it commands the segment with the fastest growth. Wall Street values the company at about $1 trillion, more than 10 times as much as General Motors…Porsche's Taycan, an electric sedan that starts at about $83,000, outsold the company's signature 911 last year. Mercedes-Benz sold nearly 100,000 electric cars and vans in 2021, a 90 percent increase from the previous year. Ford will soon start selling the Lightning, an electric version of the F-150 pickup truck, which has topped U.S. sales charts for decades. It initially planned to make 75,000 a year. But demand has been so strong that the company is racing to double production of the Lightning…If Europe and China are any measure, sales of electric vehicles in the United States will continue to explode. In December, battery-powered cars outsold diesel cars in Europe for the first time. In 18 countries, including Britain, more than 20 percent of new cars were electric, according to Matthias Schmidt, an independent analyst in Berlin…About 4 percent of new cars were electric last year in the United States, up from about 2 percent in 2020.