Critical Minerals in Transportation
Electric vehicle battery chemistries, automotive lightweighting alloys, and mobility infrastructure depend on minerals with concentrated supply chains and growing demand trajectories.
Electrifying transportation means transforming the mineral supply chain.
Electric vehicles require approximately six times more critical minerals by mass than conventional internal combustion vehicles. The battery pack alone contains tens of kilograms of graphite, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese. The rest of the vehicle demands aluminum, copper, magnesium, and specialty steels.
Automakers are racing to secure long-term mineral supply through direct offtake agreements, joint ventures with miners, and vertical integration into cathode and anode precursor manufacturing. Battery chemistry innovation (LFP, sodium-ion, solid-state) is partly driven by supply chain diversification goals.
Transportation Minerals
The EV battery supply chain is geographically concentrated.
Over 90% of battery-grade graphite anode processing, over 70% of cobalt mining (DRC), and over 60% of lithium chemical conversion are concentrated in single countries or regions. Automakers face supply security challenges that traditional ICE manufacturing never encountered.
Localizing battery material supply chains requires building mining, refining, and precursor manufacturing capacity in new jurisdictions — a process that typically takes 5 to 10 years.
Source: IEA Global EV Outlook 2026; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025.