With the anticipation around AGYs proof of concept catalyst...

With the anticipation around AGYs proof of concept catalyst coming up I thought I would have a go at evaluating some of the sector and industry wide news happening as I do feel the Lithium Bull Run 3.0 is possibly approaching

Autonomous Vehicles
One aspect that we rarely discuss is Self Driving Vehicles. I’ve been seeing more and more articles and laws passed lately bringing this into the mainstream (California leading the way). Tesla founder Elon stated Tesla vehicles should have fully function all area autopilot by the end of 2019 - Great, however with this technology becoming an everyday item for off the shelf electric vehicles what impact will that have on the Lithium Industry? Likely a very rapid introduction of fully electrified autopilot taxi and Uber type services. I don’t think anybody is seriously trying to run full Autopilot/Autonomous driving systems in ICE vehicles as AI and Electrified vehicles go hand in hand although there are a few systems used for testing more so. With California recently given full human-less autonomous vehicle licenses to 50 companies for testing purposes. This is the start of a whole new industry in my opinion (Taxi operators beware). Uber has been testing Self Driving Trucks in Arizona for a while now and has actually started freighting goods across the state for customers using the driverless technology. Read the writing on the wall

Net overall effect on the Lithium industry is a large increase in demand for Lithium Batteries to feed these autonomous fleets imo.

Some good resources below for quick reads on the subject;

https://electrek.co/2018/03/11/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-self-driving-next-year/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/technology/driverless-cars-california-rules.html

https://www.cnet.com/news/uber-self-driving-trucks-in-arizona-autonomous-vehicles-move-freight/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/elyraz...isrupt-the-real-estate-industry/#278b7e4613c1

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Electric Vehicles
On the EV only front there has been a significant increase in Big Auto decisions to go to production on new models. They have done their homework. The demand is there and technology sufficient. This is how it starts. Now where are they getting all their Lithium from?
Tesla Semi Reservations are well over 1000 with many companies wanting to start testing the product, I expect actual sales to explode upon market release when truckies realise the fuel cost savings. More Lithium required again

https://electrek.co/2018/03/05/vw-id-vizzion-electric-sedan-self-driving/

Rimac unveils new all-electric hypercar with specs just as crazy as Tesla’s new Roadster

Porsche unveils new all-electric CUV version of the Mission E

BMW confirms new electric i4 sedan coming to production based on iVision Dynamics concept

Polestar 1 – Stunning Photos & Videos From Geneva

https://evobsession.com/electric-car-sales/

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Battery Storage
Battery storage another overlooked sector but quite possibly much larger that the EV side. Guess who is going to produce off the shelf 1.2Mwatt (about 1 tonne of LCE) Lithium-ion battery systems for sale to customers.. GE with a plan to start deliveries in 2019.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2018/03/11/ge-looks-to-battery-storage-for-power-boost/

Home battery storage uptake tripled in 2017 in Australia, as costs ...

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/201809003.pdf
(THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT - We saw what tax incentives/rebates did for the Solar Industry.. well maybe the IRS has just indicated the same may apply to battery systems retrofit-outs as well. Watch this space closely)

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/21/enel-to-build-22-megawatt-battery-storage-plant-in-germany.html

https://www.greentechmedia.com/arti...or-41-megawatt-u-k-battery-project#gs.EqgNo=s

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-con-edison-utility-new-york-powerpack-battery-system/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-12/world-s-first-energy-storage-fund-to-list-in-london
“It plans to have invested in a portfolio of 10 to 13 projects within 18 months representing more than 1 gigawatt of storage capacity in the U.K. and a further 250 megawatts abroad” i.e. another 1000t of LCE needed

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Many more articles like this. Bit of a rough draft but will tidy it up when have time.
The other side of the coin is there is always news of some new battery technology to supersede Li-ion, but realistically those things are 10 years away before commercialisation

The EV and Battery Storage revolutions are coming imo.

Welcome any perspectives and links to other pertinent info/articles

GL
OS