TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Around 16-million hybrid and electric cars will be on the world’s roads by 2025, using 181 000 tons of lithium carbonate in their batteries, Chilean research firm signumBOX predicts in a new report.

To put it in perspective, that is a 34% rise in the firm's forecast total demand for lithium this year, or 119 000 t.

In a report titled 'Lithium, Batteries and Vehicles: Perspectives and Trends', signumBOX said the electronics industry and hybrid and electric vehicles, including electric bikes, would drive growth in demand for lithium in 2011.

In July, researchers from the University of Michigan and Ford Motor Company said in a study that the world had enough lithium resources to meet demand from the electric vehicle industry until the end of the century.

The biggest deposits are in South America, found in brine ponds in the Andes, but Australia is also a major producer.

Canada is also set to start producing significant amounts of the metal from 2013.
 

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