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
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.
Electrification
Chart: The $400 Billion Lithium Battery Value Chain
In this graphic, we break down where the $400 billion lithium battery industry will generate revenue in 2030.
Breaking Down the $400 Billion Battery Value Chain
As the world transitions away from fossil fuels toward a greener future, the lithium battery industry could grow fivefold by 2030. This shift could create over $400 billion in annual revenue opportunities globally.
For this graphic, we partnered with EnergyX to determine how the battery industry could grow by 2030.
Exploring the Battery Value Chain
The lithium battery value chain has many links within it that each generate their own revenue opportunities, these include:
- Critical Element Production: Involves the mining and refining of materials used in a battery’s construction.
- Active materials: Creating and developing materials that react electrochemically to allow batteries to charge and discharge.
- Battery cells: Involves the production of rechargeable elements of a battery.
- Battery packs: Producing packs containing a series of connected battery cells. Generally, these come in two types: NMC/NMCA, the standard in North America and Europe, and LFP, the standard in China.
- Recycling: Reusing battery components within new batteries.
But these links aren’t equal, each one is projected to generate different levels of revenue by 2030:
China 🇨🇳 | Europe 🇪🇺 | United States 🇺🇸 | Rest of World 🌍 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Total | $184B | $118B | $62B | $39B |
Critical Element Production | $37B | $25B | $15B | $8B |
Active Materials | $54B | $31B | $14B | $11B |
Battery Packs | $34B | $22B | $11B | $7B |
Battery Cells | $53B | $37B | $20B | $11B |
Recycling | $6B | $3B | $2B | $2B |
On the surface, battery cell production may contribute the most revenue to the battery value chain. However, lithium production can generate margins as high as 65%, meaning lithium production has potential to yield large margins.
How Much Lithium Is Available?
Just a few countries hold 81% of the world’s viable lithium. So, supply bottlenecks could slow the growth of the lithium battery industry:
Nation | Viable Lithium Reserves (2023) |
---|---|
Chile 🇨🇱 | 9.3M t |
Australia 🇦🇺 | 6.2M t |
Argentina 🇦🇷 | 2.7M t |
China 🇨🇳 | 2M t |
U.S. 🇺🇸 | 1M t |
Rest of World 🌍 | 4.9M t |
Supplying the World With Batteries
Supplying the world with lithium is critical to the battery value chain and a successful transition from fossil fuels. Players like the U.S. and the EU, with increasingly large and growing lithium needs, will need to maximize local opportunities and work together to meet demand.
EnergyX is on a mission to become a world leader in the global transition to sustainable energy, using cutting-edge direct lithium extraction to help supply the world with lithium.
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