A new methodology to assess the EU resilience to materials supply along the value chain: case of lithium for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles

Implementation of recent EU policy measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in combination with a large adoption of low-carbon technologies is acknowledged to drive an increasing demand for certain materials. Some of these materials are largely produced outside the EU and are flagged as critical in different studies. This paper presents a new and comprehensive methodology to determine the EU resilience to supply of materials used in major low-carbon technologies. It assesses the security of supply across the materials value chain by adopting specific indicators related to upstream and downstream production stages. A case study, i.e. lithium in the context of rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles, demonstrates the applicability of the methodology. While the overall issue of lithium availability for electric vehicle batteries is known, an integrated analysis at EU level based on the latest technological/market developments is however not available. This paper reveals that the EU resilience to the roll-out of EV will decrease by 2030 unless specific mitigation measures are undertaken at EU level. Such measures include recycling of waste Li-ion batteries, increasing the production of raw lithium, processed materials and cells/batteries in the EU as well as diversification of the supply of lithium and/or cells/batteries from third countries. Keywords: raw material, resilience, criticality, lithium, battery, electric vehicle, supply chain