The lithium-ion battery, now synonymous with the auto industry's electrification phase, took a while to catch on in automotive circles. Electric vehicles (EVs) have been a thing since the first EV was developed by Gustav Trouvé in 1881. Indeed, in 1900, of the 4,192 vehicles made by the industry in the US that year, 1,575 were electric. Back then, when vehicle speeds were low the lead acid battery was sufficient to give 100 miles of range.

However, as vehicle speeds increased, and requirements changed, the lead acid battery was no longer sufficient and EVs quickly fell by the wayside as the internal combustion engine (ICE) dominated. When, in the 1990s, General Motors - acting upon a California Air Resources Board (CARB) mandate for zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) - introduced its first generation EV1 in 1996 it too had a lead acid battery. Like EV counterparts earlier in the century, the EV1 could not stand toe-to-toe with ICE counterparts as the lead acid battery lacked the energy density (volumetric and gravimetric) to compete. Even the second generation EV1, this time with a more energy-packed nickel metal hydride battery, could not compete with the ICE.

These developments took place with lithium-ion as a bystander, despite providing up to three times the energy density (volumetric and gravimetric) of lead acid and approximately two times that of nickel metal hydride.

At the same time as GM was tinkering with the EV1, in Japan Nissan launched the Altra EV in 1998 to little fanfare. The Altra is significant in that it was the first EV equipped with a lithium-ion battery. It never caught on. It was not until the lithium-ion equipped Tesla Roadster was launched in 2008 that a fire was lit under the EV market and lithium-ion became mainstream.

The main lithium-ion battery chemistries

That is not where the story ends with lithium-ion. The phrase is a catchall for various cathode (a battery's positive electrode) chemistries involving lithium. Material for the anode (the negative electrode) is pretty set, with graphite universally accepted as the material of choice, albeit with silicon increasingly added to the mix to improve energy density at the cost of a reduced cell cycle life. Depending on operating requirements, in the first applications of lithium-ion the cathode chemistry choice was between lithium in combination with oxides of cobalt, manganese and nickel. Cobalt was favored for its reversibility, manganese for its safety and nickel for its energy density. Now, in lithium-ion batteries of this type, a cathode combining all three in varying ratios - NMC - is favored because of the attribute trade-offs noted above. Until relatively recently the ratio mainly used was 1:1:1, but because of a desire to reduce cost and improve sustainability (issues relating to cobalt mining) and energy density the nickel ratio has been increased to the point that NMC 811 (8:1:1) has reached near ubiquity in the NMC type. The graph below shows the market makeup and forecast for the various NMC combinations.

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This article was published by S&P Global Mobility and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.