Electric cars need to use a large number of lithium batteries, and some car companies also sign direct supply contracts with lithium battery material extraction companies for many years. And Apple is also interested in signing contracts with metal miners directly to ensure the long-term stable supply of cell phone batteries.
According to the "Penghu" news report, Apple is talking to a miner about the long-term purchase contract for Cobalt, an important component of lithium batteries. At present, the price of cobalt raw materials has tripled from 18 months ago. According to the news, Apple hopes to obtain thousands of tons of cobalt a year to stabilize the price of mobile phone battery materials, the news that Apple may sign a contract for a period of 5 years or longer so far, battery materials are purchased by battery manufacturers, not by Apple direct procurement.
At present, the electric vehicle growth has accelerated sharply rising global demand for raw materials cobalt. Although Apple mobile phones, computers, smart watch uses a battery and electric car compared to nine cattle ovo, but because of the large number of Apple products are sold every year, Therefore the battery is very sensitive to raw material prices. At present, the world's cobalt mineral quarter is used to produce smart phone battery, and the current production of most of the cobalt raw material countries are the democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, accounting for 50% of global production.
However, Apple talk contract may not be smooth national car manufacturers are now collecting cobalt raw materials to increase production of electric cars, to ensure a stable supply of raw materials will face resistance.
