Lui Shun, a senior research manager at EnergyTrend, said the price of cobalt metal hit record highs, rising to 35 USD / kg in early 2017, up to 75 USD / kg, mainly due to the market's high expectations of demand for electric vehicles. High, but also led to the contract negotiations in the battery industry, there are many cases of non-performance of contract prices.
In order to solve the problem of cost increase, the power battery is advanced to high energy density (> 200Wh / kg), and the battery factory actively introduces cathode material such as NMC and NCA to increase the usage of nickel metal, The proportion of cobalt metal will gradually reduce.EnergyTrend research shows that the mainstream of Japan and South Korea's battery factory products, nickel, manganese, cobalt ratio mostly 6: 2: 2, the proportion of the mainstream in 2018 will be converted to 8 : 1: 1, while China's battery plant material ratio will gradually increase from 5: 3: 2 to 6: 2: 2. Lu Lishun pointed out that the use of cobalt metal to reduce the cobalt metal will improve the situation.
In addition, most of the lithium batteries were reused in the past. However, as the prices of materials continue to rise, the market for the recycling industry is promising. Currently, the recycling price of used batteries has risen from 1,700 to 2,500 USD / ton to over 3,000 USD / ton.