Assessment of world lithium resources and consequences of their geographic distribution on the expected development of the electric vehicle industry

Electric vehicles (EVs) are on the verge of breaking through, most presumably flooding the automotive market with lithium-ion batteries as energy storage systems. This paper investigates the availability of world lithium resources and draws conclusions on its actual impact on the EV industry. Apart from lithium deposits geographic distribution, our contributions to the global knowledge range from a short-term forecast of lithium price evolution to a picture of the existing lithium industry and market plus a detailed explanation of the geologic origins of all the inventoried lithium resources. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.