Automotive News Canada - June 2023 - 21

* JUNE 2023
21
Battery supply chain is digging itself into a hole
Experts cast doubt
that Canada's
mines will be able
to feed raw-material
demands for EVs
By DAVID KENNEDY
T ORONTO BUREAU CHIEF
MINING AND AUTO INDUSTRY
advocates are warning that
despite Canada's early successes
in securing downstream components
of the electric-vehicle battery
supply chain, slow progress
in getting mines built puts the
country's attempt to secure an
outsized share of the battery market
at risk.
" If we don't figure out how we
get more mines into production,
it will all be for naught, " said
Photinie Koutsavlis, vice-president
of economic affairs and
climate change at the Mining
Association of Canada.
" I'm getting more and more
worried that we're not actually
doing what we need to do to
get mines into production quickly,
that we're not looking at why
mines aren't moving forward, "
Koutsavlis told attendees May 31
at a conference in Sudbury, Ont.,
entitled BEV In-Depth: Mines to
Mobility.
GENERATIONAL OPPORTUNITY
Koutsavlis was one of four
experts to take part in a panel discussion
assessing the future of
EV manufacturing in Canada.
David Adams,
president of
the Global
Automakers of
Canada, which
represents overI'm
getting more
and more worried
that we're not
actually doing what
we need to do to
get mines into
production quickly,
that we're not
looking at why
mines aren't
moving forward. "
Photinie Koutsavlis
Vice-president of economic
affairs and climate change,
Mining Association of Canada
seas automakers in this nation,
also said the country must move
more quickly.
" There's a generational investment
opportunity that's open
right now. It's not going to stay
open forever, " he said.
Canada has secured billions in
EV battery supply-chain investments
over the past two years.
Much of that spending has gone
to Ontario, Canada's traditional
automotive heartland, as well as
to resource-rich Quebec.
The successful investment
pitches, Koutsavlis said, have
centred on Canada's stores of critical
minerals and the country's
ability to prepare those resources
for use in batteries. But after creating
an " insatiable demand for
raw materials, " she said, it would
be " horrible if we can't deliver "
because of sluggish progress on
the mining side.
MOMENTUM AT RISK
Governments and automakers
have set ambitious EV goals,
said Brian Kingston, president
of the Canadian Vehicle
Manufacturers' Association
(CVMA), which represents the
Detroit Three automakers in
Canada. But a raw-material " supply
gap " is beginning to emerge.
" This [EV] momentum could
be stalled, " Adams said, " if we
don't have the ramp-up in all of
Industry experts (from left) Brian Kingston, president of the
Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, Brendan Sweeney,
managing director of the Trillium Network for Advanced
Manufacturing, and David Adams, president of the Global
Automakers of Canada, share a similar sense of urgency that
Canada must act now to avert a " supply gap " in the raw materials
required by the nation's emerging battery supply chain.
PHOTO: CITY OF GREATER SUDBURY
the inputs necessary to meet the
rollout of vehicles that's coming
quickly. "
And without output from
mines, the value of investments
in battery-material processing
facilities, cell plants and
EV assembly sites begins to
erode, said Brendan Sweeney,
managing director of the
Trillium Network for Advanced
Manufacturing, which advocates
on behalf of Ontario's manufacturing
sector.
" The value of those battery
plants increases in multiples if
they're running on Canadian
materials that come from
Canadian mines, " Sweeney said.
- ANC
Most EV minerals will come from Asia, not Canada
GM exec says mining
is not on pace with
the demands the auto
industry will impose
By DAVID KENNEDY
T ORONTO BUREAU CHIEF
GENERAL MOTORS' NEW
Canada-based critical-minerals
expert says the automaker has
the local battery-cell manufacturing
capacity to supply all of
the electric vehicles it will build
in North America by 2030. Local
sources of critical minerals, however,
are proving difficult to
come by.
Simon Thibault, who recently
joined GM as EV critical-minerals
leader for global purchasing
and supply chain, said investment
in and government support
for the upstream and midstream
parts of the supply chain
- meaning mining and material
processing - must accelerate to
truly build its battery ecosystem
in North America.
" If you don't have the capacity
to turn the minerals into battery
materials, all of [that] cell manufacturing
capacity that you're
developing in North America
will still be supplied with material
from Asia, " Thibault told
attendees June 1 at the BEV
In-Depth: Mines to Mobility conference
in Sudbury, Ont.
" This is not secure, this is not
sustainable, this is not scalable,
and this is not cost competitive, "
he said.
In North America, Thibault
said, cell production is shaping
up to be entirely accounted
for locally by 2030, but the same
can't be said for the underlying
battery materials.
" If I start moving upstream
in the battery chain, by 2030, we
will have in North America the
capacity to produce only four per
cent of our cathode production ...
and three per cent of our anode
needs. "
GOVERNMENT MUST STEP UP
GM sees resource-rich Canada
" as a place where we can further
develop upstream in the battery
chain, " Thibault said, but more
government support and consolidation
within the mining sector
is needed.
Thibault, who headed the
battery supply-chain unit at
Thibault:
Government
must increase its
investment in, and
support for, the
mining and material
processing that
Canada's battery
supply chain
requires.
PHOTO: CITY OF
GREATER SUDBURY
Investissement Quebec - a provincial
entity that lobbies for
investment - before joining
GM, pointed to the company's
decision to build a roughly $600
million cathode-active materials
plant in Bécancour, Que., as a
case in point.
Before GM's arrival, he said,
the Quebec government had
already invested about $350 million
in building out the local
infrastructure to have the site
shovel-ready. Similar local and
provincial government steps
were taken ahead of battery-cell
plant decisions in Windsor and
St. Thomas, Ont.
GM would never have undertaken
the long-lead-time investments
in Bécancour on its own,
Thibault said, and Canada needs
to broaden the set of " strategic
If I start moving
upstream in the
battery chain, by
2030, we will have in
North America the
capacity to produce
only four per cent of
our cathode
production ... and
three per cent of
our anode needs. "
Simon Thibault,
EV critical-minerals leader for
global purchasing and supply
chain, General Motors
objectives and policies " being
advanced in Quebec to replicate
the success in Bécancour.
A lack of large mining companies
in the North American
battery-minerals sector is also
holding up mine and processing
development, Thibault said. In
Canada and beyond, about twothirds
of the resources are in the
hands of junior mining companies
that lack the financial heft
and talent to push all the necessary
projects into production,
he said.
MINING NEEDS GOVERNMENT
" We need to consolidate that
industry, " Thibault said. " In
order to do that, we need government.
We need government
support because it is impossible
for the industry on its own to
achieve this. "
As in Bécancour, the government's
role is to help take the
risk out of mining and processing
projects by spending on the
roads and power infrastructure
that companies will not tackle
on their own, Thibault said.
Once projects are sufficiently
advanced, GM can then add a
further vote of confidence with
material supply agreements,
such as the one it signed with
mining giant Vale in November.
That agreement will see nickel
that's mined in Sudbury processed
into battery-grade nickel
sulfate in Bécancour. That will
then be integrated into cathode-active
material at GM and
Posco Future M's battery-materials
plant, also in Bécancour,
before it is shipped to GM's
Ultium Cells plants in the
United States. The nickel-rich
cells will ultimately be put on
the road in the battery packs in
GM's EVs.
" It will be the first time ...
where you will get a mineral
that will be extracted from the
ground and going straight into
an EV, all in North America, "
Thibault said.
This level of integration is not
simple but is necessary to bring
the EV battery supply chain
onshore, he said.
" The only way we can actually
survive in this thing and
become the world leader, "
Thibault said, " is by being cost
competitive with Asia. " - ANC
Automotive News Canada - June 2023

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