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China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices

The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) on a large scale is crucial for meeting the desired climate commitments, where affordability plays a vital role. However, the expected surge in prices of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, four critical materials in EV batteries, could hinder EV uptake. T...

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Autores principales: Wang, Hetong, Feng, Kuishuang, Wang, Peng, Yang, Yuyao, Sun, Laixiang, Yang, Fan, Chen, Wei-Qiang, Zhang, Yiyi, Li, Jiashuo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9985616/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36870994
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36957-4
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author Wang, Hetong
Feng, Kuishuang
Wang, Peng
Yang, Yuyao
Sun, Laixiang
Yang, Fan
Chen, Wei-Qiang
Zhang, Yiyi
Li, Jiashuo
author_facet Wang, Hetong
Feng, Kuishuang
Wang, Peng
Yang, Yuyao
Sun, Laixiang
Yang, Fan
Chen, Wei-Qiang
Zhang, Yiyi
Li, Jiashuo
author_sort Wang, Hetong
collection PubMed
description The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) on a large scale is crucial for meeting the desired climate commitments, where affordability plays a vital role. However, the expected surge in prices of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, four critical materials in EV batteries, could hinder EV uptake. To explore these impacts in the context of China, the world’s largest EV market, we expand and enrich an integrated assessment model. We find that under a high material cost surge scenario, EVs would account for 35% (2030) and 51% (2060) of the total number of vehicles in China, significantly lower than 49% (2030) and 67% (2060) share in the base-line, leading to a 28% increase in cumulative carbon emissions (2020-2060) from road transportation. While material recycling and technical battery innovation are effective long-term countermeasures, securing the supply chains of critical materials through international cooperation is highly recommended, given geopolitical and environmental fragilities.
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spelling pubmed-99856162023-03-06 China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices Wang, Hetong Feng, Kuishuang Wang, Peng Yang, Yuyao Sun, Laixiang Yang, Fan Chen, Wei-Qiang Zhang, Yiyi Li, Jiashuo Nat Commun Article The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) on a large scale is crucial for meeting the desired climate commitments, where affordability plays a vital role. However, the expected surge in prices of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, four critical materials in EV batteries, could hinder EV uptake. To explore these impacts in the context of China, the world’s largest EV market, we expand and enrich an integrated assessment model. We find that under a high material cost surge scenario, EVs would account for 35% (2030) and 51% (2060) of the total number of vehicles in China, significantly lower than 49% (2030) and 67% (2060) share in the base-line, leading to a 28% increase in cumulative carbon emissions (2020-2060) from road transportation. While material recycling and technical battery innovation are effective long-term countermeasures, securing the supply chains of critical materials through international cooperation is highly recommended, given geopolitical and environmental fragilities. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-03-04 /pmc/articles/PMC9985616/ /pubmed/36870994 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36957-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Wang, Hetong
Feng, Kuishuang
Wang, Peng
Yang, Yuyao
Sun, Laixiang
Yang, Fan
Chen, Wei-Qiang
Zhang, Yiyi
Li, Jiashuo
China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices
title China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices
title_full China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices
title_fullStr China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices
title_full_unstemmed China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices
title_short China’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices
title_sort china’s electric vehicle and climate ambitions jeopardized by surging critical material prices
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9985616/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36870994
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36957-4
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