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Thanks IB - my wife tells me I'm a jam boy now too!
Well I've chucked in a few quid today. Always believed DA was the mining equivalent of the local Vauxhall dealer salesman but..... maybe in a little too deep. Hopefully as I said ages ago maybe a rescue. Can't see RT wanting to work with him but maybe able to realise SAV potential. It's just a punt. 2.2p? A potential great punt, will take 20% gain any day.
Well we'll see what the market thinks next week. Funnily enough I might shake the dust out my wallet as I get a decent gut feel for SAV in September......
Agree - range will improve. But where charge them up? Most cars are parked on the street so think about the infrastructure required. If only manufacturers could get together and agree a common interchangeable battery format. Stop at a service station and swap your flat for a fully charged one.
Sorry - rate of EV sales falling.
Sorry - didn't post it all. EV sales falling globally - and no wonder!
If I was to buy one..
Where would I charge it? How long would it take? How far could I go? Outside my home - no. Hours- yes! 200 miles max.
Absolutely no way unless manufacturers agree a common battery format. Hybrids a maybe.
Trade wars and geopolitical uncertainty have made 2019 a challenging year for commodities investors in general. However, few resources have been trickier to fathom, or more unpredictable, than cobalt and lithium.
Before the advent of modern electric vehicles (EV), lithium was known for decades as a medicinal cure for depression. But plummeting prices have given investors in the commodity – which is a crucial raw material in the manufacture of high-powered lithium-ion EV car batteries – the blues.
Lithium carbonate prices assessed by S&P Global Platts have tumbled more than 20pc this year to around $10,000 per metric tonne amid a global glut of supply, which has outstripped demand for EVs.
Once dubbed the new “white gold” when prices peaked at a record $25,000 per metric tonne in 2017, lithium is now being branded “white dust” by some companies burned after getting carried away by over-investing in its large-scale production and processing.
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“Lithium supply is growing far quicker than lithium demand and this can be said for all battery materials as the EV pick-up rate is not expected to really start increasing until the early to mid-2020s,” says Marcel Goldenberg, manager metals and derivatives at S&P Global Platts.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley now forecasts prices could fall by a further 30pc through to the end of 2025 as suppliers race to bring on new production and refining capacity.
Electric cars
Lithium is a crucial raw material in the manufacture of high-powered lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries
Shares in the world’s largest producers such as Albemarle in the US and Chile’s SQM have also taken a hit from the slump. Meanwhile, Ganfeng – China’s largest lithium producer and a supplier if carbonate to Tesla – said this week that first-half profits tumbled almost 60pc.
First used commercially by Japan’s Sony in the early 1990s to power video recorders, lithium-ion batteries have become the gold standard for EVs because they store more power per unit of weight compared with alternatives such as nickel-cadmium. The trade-off is cost and the toxic process to refine the material along with producing the batteries.
Materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite account for about a third of total EV battery costs. The rest is gobbled up by inefficient manufacturing processes and elongated supply chains.
“Overhead costs for producing an EV battery are still large and economies of scale have not yet been established meaning that the price of the raw materials used in a battery has a limited impact on the overall price of the battery,” said Goldenberg.
Underlying the slump in lithium is the continued consumer distrust in EVs and their limited range when compared with the internal combustion engine.
British motorists remain largely unconvinced by the technology, despite the government’s desire to promote plug-ins at all costs. Sales fell in June for the first time since 2017. O
Optimistic?? You are fantasising!! Some people have invested £25k into SAV.....wow!!!
Kop - was replying to Muldoon. Was quoting his post from a few weeks ago. Settle down!
Wow that post's even more disjointed than usual. You must know you will never get 4.5p and of course you are selling soon anyway. But wait, you then say 'I'm out', so you have already sold. So the boy at UCL is 'well ahead' is he ? - what commercial battery technology in currently in production has he been responsible for ? Whatever it is it is impressive for him to have achieved it single-handed.
What a loser you are.
Muldoon - you make me smile!!
I'm surprised the jam boys are not telling everyone to 'top-up' again when the sp is so low!
The sp reflects this opinion - jam maybe in years.... Hope something can happen with RT?
Also not sure about my maths! If I remember right most shipping fuel is not burned in the single combustion process. It was a practical example of the Hall effect? I'm getting too old now.
Again completely agree. There is still the old chestnut about how is the electricity going to be generated to charge the batteries? Archaic people still refer to fossil fuels and then there is the whole Arab issue.
Personally I would invest in quiet a few solar furnaces, stick them in the Sahara to generate most of Europe's requirements.
TB - totally agree with the street impact however unfortunately shareholders rarely think of the associated costs or savings far down the line. We are too greedy.
As for my fag packet maths, assuming the ship does actually burn 70 tonnes per day a one way trip burns about 1800 tonnes. Ships fuel oil is much denser than petrol so let's equat that to 900 tonnes of petrol, approx 3/4 kg per litre so 1200000l @ 12 miles/l = 14400000miles. How many batteries will 10000tonnes of concentrate make? Say 1.5% yield = 150tonnes. Say each battery is 150kg and you have 1000 batteries. So just the shipping over, never mind anything else is equivalent to 1000vehicles doing approx 14000miles.
Ok these figures are a loose estimate however can you see my point?
Have had a quick look. Suppose SAV ships 10000 tonnes or ore to China. An approx 23 day voyage burning approx 70 tonnes of fuel per day. That is a lot of fuel! Do the maths and estimate the motoring distance to leave the same footprint. I think you will be surprised at the answer and realise shipping it is a no brainer.
I hadn't until now. Thanks - I'll look into it.
Great! What's the environmental impact of shipping compared to the benefits of the EVs?
Exactly!