Ukraine-News: Delivery pass for important raw materials - war threatens boom in electric cars

Created: 03/23/2022, 13:14

By: Jonas Raab

An ID.3 from Volkswagen in production: the war in Ukraine has made the precious metal nickel, which is used in batteries in electric cars, expensive.

All car manufacturers suffer from this.

© picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild |

Sebastian Kahnert

The Ukraine war and the associated sanctions against Russia are hitting the electronics divisions of car manufacturers hard.

The battery precious metal nickel is becoming scarce.

Munich - The Ukraine war * can explode raw material prices.

The automotive industry is also affected.

In particular, the manufacturers' electronics divisions, which are so important and promising, are groaning under the price jumps of the past few weeks.

The transformation of the industry towards alternative drives - it is a mammoth task anyway - gets a real chunk in the way of Vladimir Putin*.

The raw material nickel is a central component of batteries.

The metal was scarce and expensive even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine*.

Last year you had to shell out around 20,000 US dollars for the ton, in March it was sometimes 100,000 dollars.

According to the

, almost ten percent of the nickel traded worldwide comes from Russia.

In the case of the premium variant, which is found in particular in car batteries, the so-called “class 1” nickel, the world market share is even 20 percent.

War in Ukraine causes nickel price to explode - Volkswagen is looking to China

Germany gets more than 40 percent of its nickel exports from Russia.

That makes German automakers particularly dependent on the East.

For example, BMW* CFO Nicolas Peter expects “headwinds in the mid three-digit million range”

due to the price jumps and the delivery difficulties caused by the sanctions, according to

Volkswagen* has already responded.

The group announced on Monday (March 21) that it would set up two joint ventures with Chinese partners to secure nickel supplies.

New nickel deposits are to be developed in Indonesia.

"Russia's failure is the biggest concern for the battery supply chain," says Caspar Rawles from the consulting firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI) in the

.

The Ukraine war comes at a bad time for e-mobility, when lithium prices have already reached record levels.

Cobalt has also become extremely expensive.*

War in Ukraine makes e-cars expensive - battery specialist sees climate goals in danger

The scarcity of raw materials will probably make electric cars more expensive than planned in the medium term.

At the latest when the often longer-term supply contracts between the car manufacturers and their battery suppliers expire, the nickel confusion will have an impact.

that the Ukraine war could lead to serious disruptions in the battery supply chain

.

The battery specialist at the London consulting firm GlobalData fears consequences for the transformation of the automotive industry* and thus also for the climate policies of individual countries.

Clarke goes on to explain in the

that the additional raw material costs for batteries would either have to be passed on to the profits of the car manufacturers or to the end prices for the customers.

The climate problem behind it: The price of e-cars will certainly have to play the central role on their way out of the niche.

War in Ukraine causes shortage of raw materials: Cars have already become so much more expensive

Car buyers are already feeling the first effects of the shortage of raw materials.

Fully electric vehicles have become 2,300 euros more expensive within a year.

The number comes from calculations by commodity analysts at the major Swiss bank UBS, to which the

refers.

Combustors have also become more expensive because the raw materials palladium and platinum required in catalytic converters are also recording price increases.

That adds up to 700 euros in additional costs when buying a combustion engine.

Despite the massive increase in prices, the analysts consider an electric car to be worthwhile.

The reason for this is the current fuel prices*.