As the world looks in horror at Russia's continued war in Ukraine, European governments continue to sponsor Putin's atrocities via oil and gas imports. But more voices are calling for this to stop and T&E hopes an oil embargo is announced shortly.
Europe's dependence on Russian oil puts $285 million a day in Putin's pocket. If not Russia, we will be reliant on autocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia or Iran unless we drastically cut our oil consumption.
The best structural way to do so is to double down on electrification. But electric vehicle sales have been stagnating across Europe following a relaxation in EU clean car rules.
Some claim that ramping up electrification in the 2020s is not possible because there are not enough metals such as lithium available to build the lithium-ion batteries that propel them.
A new T&E report, out today, shows that wrong political priorities, not raw material shortages, are the problem.
Enough raw materials
The maximum volumes of battery quality nickel (nickel sulfate) and lithium (both hydroxide and carbonate) expected to be mined and refined globally until 2025 are enough to produce 14 million electric cars already next year.
This is 55 percent more than the amount of EVs forecast by LMC Automotive to be sold globally in 2023.