“Auto OEMs will Need to Become Miners” – Gigafactories Europe Berlin Event, Benchmark Launches Giga USA

“Auto OEMs will need to become miners” – Gigafactories Europe Berlin event, benchmark launches giga USA.

Benchmark’s inaugural Battery Megafactories Europe 2022 event in Berlin was an outstanding success that zeroed in on a number of pertinent points for the continent’s EV and battery supply chain. 

Here we share some of these insights as we look forward to our inaugural Battery Gigafactories USA 23-24 June in Washington DC. 

Here are some of the key takeaways from our Berlin event:

RAW MATERIALS ENTER THE REALM OF IMPOSSIBLE

• Even in the most optimistic scenarios where every single raw material project in the pipeline comes on stream and existing operations expand aggressively, there will not be enough raw material for the battery supply chain as we go into 2030 
• Lack of supply is not due to any geological constraints but a simple lack of capital investment to build the mines of tomorrow  
• Benchmark forecasts that lithium chemical supply will be in a deficit of over 300,000 tonnes by 2030, with nickel sulphate supply set to fall short of demand by nearly 400,000 tonnes, cobalt by over 75,000 tonnes and flake graphite by nearly 2 million tonnes by the end of the decade
• Both lithium and cobalt face medium-term challenges to meeting automotive consumer ambitions; raw material constraints will prevent battery production topping the 1 TWh threshold until 2025

OEMS WILL NEED TO TAKE DRASTIC UPSTREAM ACTION 

• Benchmark’s Simon Moores stressed that OEM’s will “need to become miners” – and invest to bring new raw material mining capacity, not just refining capacity, to market 
• Benchmark’s Daisy Jennings-Gray warned of the “the huge raw material disconnect” that has opened up between growing downstream demand for critical battery raw materials from the EV industry and the increasingly limited availability of those raw materials
• Benchmark warned that OEM raw material fears have become reality for lithium and nickel after unprecedented price spikes 
• LME nickel chaos exacerbated industry doubts over existing financial mechanism that “do not reflect the realities of the EV and battery supply chain” and calls for new pricing mechanism grows 

THE GLOBAL BATTERY ARMS RACE SHOWS NO SIGNS OF SLOWING DOWN 

• Benchmark’s Keynote outlined that the “lithium ion battery is going nowhere” explaining the underlining trends of lithium ion cells, especially NCM and LFP chemistries, are getting “better, lower cost, and abundant” 
• Benchmark warned of more battery capacity to come despite raw material disconnect, with global totals expect to top 10GWh for Energy Transition needs 
• Global lithium ion battery capacity 10 year pipeline has reached 5,777GWh 
• Europe is set to have 15% of this capacity, China 68%, and the USA 12%
• The world has 282 Gigafactories at various stages of production and construction as assessed by Benchmark in February 2022 
• Benchmark warned that short term battery cell price increases of 10-20% due to lithium carbonate and nickel sulphate price spikes will impact EVs but the long term trend towards lower costs is generally positive 

JOIN BATTERY GIGAFACTORIES USA 2022, THURSDAY 23- FRIDAY 24 JUNE 2022, GRAND HYATT, WASHINGTON DC 

After the outstanding success of our inaugural European event, Benchmark announce the launch of Battery Gigafactories USA 2022 in Washington DC. 

These events are key enablers in building the EV supply chains of today and tomorrow. 

It brings together government, industry and financiers of the electric vehicle revolution with a specific focus on the rise of the these supersized lithium ion battery plants in the USA.  

This event replaces The Benchmark Summit – Washington DC for 2022 only. 

GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES ATTEND FOR FREE

All US government affiliated organisations can attend for free including government departments and senatorial and congressional representatives. 

Click here to apply. 

BUY DELEGATE PASSES HERE: 

As a commercial event, all non governmental attendees can purchase delegate passes to the 2 day event here. 

Our European event sold out and we had to reject attendees because of overcapacity, so please act early to have a better chance of attending. 

“AUTO OEMS WILL NEED TO BECOME MINERS” – GIGAFACTORIES EUROPE BERLIN EVENT; BENCHMARK LAUNCHES GIGA USA, March 31, 2022