Enlarge image
BMW advertising show for the iX3 (in Shenyang, China): Where should all the lithium for the batteries come from?
Photo: Pan Yulong / Xinhua / imago images
The German auto industry relies on electric drives, but the raw material lithium required for this is still considered a shortage product.
At least BMW has now opened up another source of supply for its electric cars: the Bavarian car company will no longer only get the lithium for its battery cells from Australia, but from 2022 also from Argentina.
BMW has signed a multi-year contract for 285 million euros with the US company Livent.
In this way, "we are making ourselves technologically, geographically and geopolitically more independent of individual suppliers," said Andreas Wendt, Board Member for Purchasing, according to the announcement.
In addition, Livent protects the local ecosystem with its mining process.
By 2030, half of the BMWs sold are expected to be fully electric
A forecast by the Karlsruhe Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) on behalf of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) suggests how great the demand for lithium may soon be: In the study, the researchers went up to 2035 mainly because of increasing e-mobility in the most extreme case from three and a half times the demand of today's production.
The now higher premium for these vehicles in the Corona economic stimulus package is already leading to increasing demand.
Half of the world's lithium deposits are located under the salt lakes in the triangle of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile.
Usually the brine is pumped out of the ground and evaporated in shallow basins.
Livent gives most of the brine back into the habitat instead of evaporating it.
In this way, the balance between the groundwater and brine layers is largely preserved, and the land consumption is lower, said the car company.
By 2030, half of the cars sold are expected to be fully electric.
The lithium requirement for the battery cells increases accordingly.
In Germany, too, there are considerations to mine lithium in this country on a large scale.
Vulcan Energy Resources plans to start mining in the Upper Rhine Rift soon - as a waste product from geothermal energy there.
Deutsche Lithium plans to mine the light metal in the Ore Mountains soon.
Possibly the pit water from old mines can also be used for extraction.
apr / dpa
