The Impacts of Electric Vehicles on Resources and Supply Chains Sustainability

Abstract

The fast development of electric vehicle market globally leads to highly dynamic critical metal demands, which brings potential resource and supply chain sustainability challenges. In this chapter, we project future lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese demands driven by global electric vehicle deployment under different battery technology scenarios, and investigate the impacts on resource and supply chain sustainability. The results suggest that future critical metal demands are substantially affected by battery technology roadmap. Considerable risks exist in the supply chains of battery materials. Policy recommendations are proposed to cope with the upcoming challenges.