Electrification
Electric Car Companies: Visualizing the Race for EV Dominance
Electric Car Companies: Eating Tesla’s Dust
Tesla has reigned supreme among electric car companies, ever since it first released the Roadster back in 2008.
The California-based company headed by Elon Musk ended 2020 with 23% of the EV market and recently became the first automaker to hit a $1 trillion market capitalization. However, competitors like Volkswagen hope to accelerate their own EV efforts to unseat Musk’s company as the dominant manufacturer.
This graphic based on data from EV Volumes compares Tesla and other top carmakers’ positions today—from an all-electric perspective—and gives market share projections for 2025.
Auto Majors Playing Catch-up
According to Wood Mackenzie, Volkswagen will become the largest manufacturer of EVs before 2030. In order to achieve this, the world’s second-biggest carmaker is in talks with suppliers to secure direct access to the raw materials for batteries.
It also plans to build six battery factories in Europe by 2030 and to invest globally in charging stations. Still, according to EV Volumes projections, by 2025 the German company is forecasted to have only 12% of the market versus Tesla’s 21%.
Company | Sales 2020 | Sales 2025 (projections) | Market cap (Oct '21, USD) |
---|---|---|---|
Tesla | 499,000 | 2.8M | $1.023T |
Volkswagen Group | 230,000 | 1.5M | $170B |
BYD | 136,000 | 377,000 | $113B |
SGMW (GM, Wulling Motors, SAIC) | 211,000 | 1.1M | $89B |
BMW | 48,000 | 455,000 | $67B |
Daimler (Mercedes-Benz) | 55,000 | 483,000 | $103B |
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi | 191,000 | 606,000 | $39B |
Geely | 40,000 | 382,000 | $34B |
Hyundai -Kia | 145,000 | 750,000 | $112B |
Stellantis | 82,000 | 931,000 | $63B |
Toyota | 11,000 | 382,000 | $240B |
Ford | 1,400 | 282,000 | $63B |
Other auto giants are following the same track towards EV adoption.
GM, the largest U.S. automaker, wants to stop selling fuel-burning cars by 2035. The company is making a big push into pure electric vehicles, with more than 30 new models expected by 2025.
Meanwhile, Ford expects 40% of its vehicles sold to be electric by the year 2030. The American carmaker has laid out plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in electric and autonomous vehicle efforts in the coming years.
Tesla’s Brand: A Secret Weapon
When it comes to electric car company brand awareness in the marketplace, Tesla still surpasses all others. In fact, more than one-fourth of shoppers who are considering an EV said Tesla is their top choice.
“They’ve done a wonderful job at presenting themselves as the innovative leader of electric vehicles and therefore, this is translating high awareness among consumers…”
—Rachelle Petusky, Research at Cox Automotive Mobility Group
Tesla recently surpassed Audi as the fourth-largest luxury car brand in the United States in 2020. It is now just behind BMW, Lexus, and Mercedes-Benz.
The Dominance of Electric Car Companies by 2040
BloombergNEF expects annual passenger EV sales to reach 13 million in 2025, 28 million in 2030, and 48 million by 2040, outselling gasoline and diesel models (42 million).
As the EV market continues to grow globally, competitors hope to take a run at Tesla’s lead—or at least stay in the race.
Electrification
White Gold: Mapping U.S. Lithium Mines
In this graphic, Visual Capitalist partnerered with EnergyX to explore the size and location of U.S. lithium mines.
White Gold: Mapping U.S. Lithium Mines
The U.S. doubled imports of lithium-ion batteries for the third consecutive year in 2022, and with EV demand growing yearly, U.S. lithium mines must ramp up production or rely on other nations for their supply of refined lithium.
To determine if the domestic U.S. lithium opportunity can meet demand, we partnered with EnergyX to determine how much lithium sits within U.S. borders.
U.S. Lithium Projects
The most crucial measure of a lithium mine’s potential is the quantity that can be extracted from the source.
For each lithium resource, the potential volume of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) was calculated with a ratio of one metric ton of lithium producing 5.32 metric tons of LCE. Cumulatively, existing U.S. lithium projects contain 94.8 million metric tons of LCE.
Rank | Project Name | LCE, million metric tons (est.) |
---|---|---|
1 | McDermitt Caldera | 21.5 |
2 | Thacker Pass | 19.1 |
3 | Tonopah Flats | 18.0 |
4 | TLC Lithium | 10.7 |
5 | Clayton Valley (Century Lithium) | 6.3 |
6 | Zeus Lithium | 6.3 |
7 | Rhyolite Ridge | 3.4 |
8 | Arkansas Smackover (Phase 1A) | 2.8 |
9 | Basin Project | 2.2 |
10 | McGee Deposit | 2.1 |
11 | Arkansas Smackover (South West) | 1.8 |
12 | Clayton Valley (Lithium-X, Pure Energy) | 0.8 |
13 | Big Sandy | 0.3 |
14 | Imperial Valley/Salton Sea | 0.3 |
U.S. Lithium Opportunities, By State
U.S. lithium projects mainly exist in western states, with comparatively minor opportunities in central or eastern states.
State | LCE, million metric tons (est.) |
---|---|
Nevada | 88.2 |
Arkansas | 4.6 |
Arizona | 2.5 |
California | 0.3 |
Currently, the U.S. is sitting on a wealth of lithium that it is underutilizing. For context, in 2022, the U.S. only produced about 5,000 metric tons of LCE and imported a projected 19,000 metric tons of LCE, showing that the demand for the mineral is healthy.
The Next Gold Rush?
U.S. lithium companies have the opportunity to become global leaders in lithium production and accelerate the transition to sustainable energy sources. This is particularly important as the demand for lithium is increasing every year.
EnergyX is on a mission to meet U.S. lithium demands using groundbreaking technology that can extract 300% more lithium from a source than traditional methods.
You can take advantage of this opportunity by investing in EnergyX and joining other significant players like GM in becoming a shareholder.
Electrification
Will Direct Lithium Extraction Disrupt the $90B Lithium Market?
Visual Capitalist and EnergyX explore how direct lithium extraction could disrupt the $90B lithium industry.
Will Direct Lithium Extraction Disrupt the $90B Lithium Market?
Current lithium extraction and refinement methods are outdated, often harmful to the environment, and ultimately inefficient. So much so that by 2030, lithium demand will outstrip supply by a projected 1.42 million metric tons. But there is a solution: Direct lithium extraction (DLE).
For this graphic, we partnered with EnergyX to try to understand how DLE could help meet global lithium demands and change an industry that is critical to the clean energy transition.
The Lithium Problem
Lithium is crucial to many renewable energy technologies because it is this element that allows EV batteries to react. In fact, it’s so important that projections show the lithium industry growing from $22.2B in 2023 to nearly $90B by 2030.
But even with this incredible growth, as you can see from the table, refined lithium production will need to increase 86.5% over and above current projections.
2022 (million metric tons) | 2030P (million metric tons) | |
---|---|---|
Lithium Carbonate Demand | 0.46 | 1.21 |
Lithium Hydroxide Demand | 0.18 | 1.54 |
Lithium Metal Demand | 0 | 0.22 |
Lithium Mineral Demand | 0.07 | 0.09 |
Total Demand | 0.71 | 3.06 |
Total Supply | 0.75 | 1.64 |
The Solution: Direct Lithium Extraction
DLE is a process that uses a combination of solvent extraction, membranes, or adsorbents to extract and then refine lithium directly from its source. LiTASTM, the proprietary DLE technology developed by EnergyX, can recover an incredible 300% more lithium per ton than existing processes, making it the perfect tool to help meet lithium demands.
Additionally, LiTASTM can refine lithium at the lowest cost per unit volume directly from brine, an essential step in meeting tomorrow’s lithium demand and manufacturing next-generation batteries, while significantly reducing the footprint left by lithium mining.
Hard Rock Mining | Underground Reservoirs | Direct Lithium Extraction | |
---|---|---|---|
Direct CO2 Emissions | 15,000 kg | 5,000 kg | 3.5 kg |
Water Use | 170 m3 | 469 m3 | 34-94 m3 |
Lithium Recovery Rate | 58% | 30-40% | 90% |
Land Use | 464 m2 | 3124 m2 | 0.14 m2 |
Process Time | Variable | 18 months | 1-2 days |
Providing the World with Lithium
DLE promises to disrupt the outdated lithium industry by improving lithium recovery rates and slashing emissions, helping the world meet the energy demands of tomorrow’s electric vehicles.
EnergyX is on a mission to become a worldwide leader in the sustainable energy transition using groundbreaking direct lithium extraction technology. Don’t miss your chance to join companies like GM and invest in EnergyX to transform the future of renewable energy.
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