Speaking at an industry conference in May, Tesla’s supply chain manager Sarah Maryssael called on the U.S. government to help ensure the ongoing availability of minerals needed to produce lithium-ion batteries, including lithium, nickel, and copper.

In the U.K., Professor Richard Herrington raised the concern about mineral shortages restricting the rapid growth of the electric vehicle market in a letter to the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, in which he wrote, “Over the next few decades, global supply of raw materials must drastically change to accommodate [the world’s] transformation to a low carbon economy.”

• The rise of affordable electric cars is driven by EU law and achievable based on carmakers’ latest production plans.
• Carmakers have four tools at hand to comply with the law: EV boost; improvements to combustion engine; stop selling highest-emitting cars; and pooling with EV makers
• Boosting EV sales is the most future-proof strategy and the one chosen by key European brands
• The cost of the investments required to meet the climate targets for cars is estimated to be about half of that incurred by the penalties for failing to comply
• Surge in SUVs from 7% in 2009 to 36% in 2018, and not the decline in diesel sales, is principally to blame for the recent rise in CO2 emissions from new cars