so germany is interested in bolivia\'s lithium - is it the best option for the country?

In a previous statement, I asked Bolivia\'s President Evo Morales about possible reasons for optimism about the country\'s lithium outlook.
Here I confirm my hypothesis again.
This is based on what the president said in his State of the Union address to the National Assembly, and the content meeting announced by the development planning department at a press conference a few weeks ago.
Let\'s start with the president. In his above-
In his speech to the whole country on January 22, he mentioned that Bolivia has many suggestions from China, Russia, and the United States and Europe have carried out small-scale production at pilot factories implemented by its government, began to enter the next stage of lithium industry.
He went on to add that the Minister for Development Planning confirmed this, saying: But the minister goes further.
In her view, to produce lithium batteries, it is necessary to consider the functions that must be achieved \", which is associated with a more convenient vehicle or production chain;
In the case of German quotation, they are considering the development of the whole chain, which is reflected in the whole German chain.
\"She also believes that Bolivia has so far set up pilot plants for basic lithium products and has developed some expertise to produce the cathode.
She believes that in the first phase of the production of lithium chains, Germany is expected to invest at least $0. 35 billion.
However, in order to comply with lithium\'s industrialisation, the minister believes that Germany must make a contribution similar to that of Bolivia: it is not the first time that the President of Bolivia talks about choosing the right lithium industrialisation partner.
As early as 2011, he expressed his deepest desire to choose Japan as a lithium development partner because Toyota (NYSE:TM)
Make electric cars in this country.
This rather embarrassing and amazing argument forced me to respond almost immediately, pointing out three flaws in the presidential reasoning.
First of all, I don\'t think the Japanese government can force any Japanese private company to invest in a specific area.
It\'s a bit strange that this idea still works for Japan today, but it may not work for other countries. Why?
Because Japan (
Highly influenced by Toyota)
Continue to believe that fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs)
Not the plug.
Electric vehicles (PEVs)
Is it a clean road?
Technological revolution in the world.
As for other countries, such as China or Germany, I am now more inclined to think that their governments are willing to work with Bolivia to create synergies and networks, as long as China or China is willing, the development and industrialisation of their lithium by these synergies and networks is the involvement of German companies in this process, ultimately benefiting from unlimited or unrestricted access to key metals.
Second, the necessary steps in Bolivia\'s previous production of electric vehicles cannot be taken for granted.
In 2016 articles, I came up with two reasons for the leading electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla (TSLA)
For example, there will be no interest in setting up a lithium battery plant in Bolivia-in this regard, nor will an electric vehicle plant soon be established in Bolivia.
First, Tesla did not believe that lithium would face supply problems in the near future;
Second, Bolivia and even South America are not seen as an attractive or potential market for electric vehicles in the coming years.
Looking back, the two world views may need to be revised as follows.
First, at the latest earnings call, Tesla unveiled two other concerns from Elon Musk-in addition to all the views that different types of analysts have fully discussed about delaying the release of Model 3: possible lithium supply constraints and vertical integration requirements for Li-
Production of ion batteries.
Take a look at the following records of Tesla\'s phone: In the last two articles, I have put forward some ideas on both topics, needless to say --
Closely related.
You can find them here and here.
In short, the main thrust of my argument is that since there is sufficient evidence at the moment that there may be a lithium shortage in the next few years, major electric vehicle manufacturers may be interested in vertically integrating their lithium value chain in the supply chain to ensure access to lithium resources, which in turn may help them guarantee the supply of lithium batteries needed to produce the final product.
In addition, in terms of the fact that electric vehicles are currently becoming effective vehicles around the world, it may be more meaningful to consider South America and even Bolivia (
Not to mention Argentina and Chile)
-Potential electric vehicle market in the next few years.
In this respect, lithium-
Producers from this part of the world may have oneand-for-
Opportunities for All vertical negotiations
Integrated Lithium project with major electric vehicle manufacturers.
This may explain why BYD (OTCPK:BYDDY)
Consideration is being given to the production of the first lithium-powered electric bus
By 2019, Argentina\'s ion batteries will be installed in the plant in Salta, close to important lithium resources;
Tesla may be interested in producing high in Chile
High quality hydrogen oxide lithium that may cooperate with SQM (NYSE:SQM);
Afk aci Group, German consortium-
I \'ve talked about it in a recent article Seeking Alpha only for my subscribers-and I\'m willing to set up \"Bolivia-
Germany\'s partnership to extract and use raw materials from salt water and to build batteries in Bolivia for this purpose, YLB (
Share of 51%)
Related companies in Germany (
49% of the shares)
Will be created.
\"All of this leads us to analyze the relevance of the third defect in the morals 2011 argument, that is, he seems to know nothing about the current state of electric vehicle technology, not to mention his lack of knowledge about the use of lithium in advanced batteries for electric vehicles.
In retrospect, I was referring to Toyota\'s uncompetitive position, which also explains its resistance to technological change.
About GM (GM)and Nissan (OTCPK:NSANY)
In that plug.
Vigorously support the development of electric vehicle technology in Bolivia lithium.
Sadly, neither President Morales nor the minister of Development Planning\'s views on electric vehicle technology show any positive evolution.
It is no wonder that the government of Bolivia does not appear to be concerned that any member of the German consortium that signed a memorandum of understanding with them did not produce any products with advanced lithium batteries with technical expertise.
But there is much to be said about this important topic. The above-
The minister spoke not only about the production of lithium batteries, but also about the production of electric vehicles.
So even the German consortium-
Its technical and financial proposals for the construction of lithium carbonate industrial plants are currently being assessed by the government-which happens to have sufficient contact with other German companies, these companies actually produce lithium batteries and electric vehicles that use them as a competitive way for lithium industrial projects.
This makes President Morales very happy.
Making progress and being implemented, we still need to ask ourselves whether this is indeed the best option for Bolivia or for any other lithium-producing country.
This leads me directly to ask if Germany is ready to compete in the lithium battery and electric vehicle market.
The findings are not very encouraging.
According to the information provided by Avicenne and the European Commission on 2015, the German Li-
Ion battery enterprises accounted for only 26% of Europe\'s total output, accounting for about 49% of Europe\'s total output, while Europe\'s actual production and production capacity accounted for only 0. 5% and 2. % Of global Li-4
The production and production capacity of ion batteries are respectively.
This did not appear to have changed significantly in 2016 and 2017.
If only SB_LiMotive, a company founded by Bosch in 2008, things might be better (Germany)
Samsung SDI (Korea)
Will decide to continue operations after 2012.
Despite Li\'s production prospects
In the coming years, the ion batteries in Germany will look more interesting, especially since Daimler (OTCPK:DMLRY)
Recently announced that it will start building its second Li-
Investing 0. 5 billion euros in ion battery plants, they look almost negligible compared to Tesla\'s other efforts to execute and plan (USA)
And Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. , Ltd. CATL (China), respectively.
In a recent video, people explain why Germans may be interested in producing their own Li-
When ion Batteries solve all the obstacles facing competition in the electric vehicle market today.
As for the electric car market, this number is a bit tricky.
Here, we need to look at this issue from two perspectives.
1. In terms of the sales of electric vehicles, 2, as a function of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE)
Batteries for electric vehicles.
These two different angles, in turn, will enable us to draw some conclusions about Germany\'s competitive power in the most important aspects.
Products of the lithium energy value chain and Germany\'s status as a potential partner in Bolivia (
Or any other producer of lithium)
In the process of trying to create value
Add products along the same value chain.
I have long advocated vertical integration in the lithium industry, which is good for both raw material producers and end products
Country of product manufacturing.
Now it seems that even Australia, the leader of the global lithium industry, may be interested in the significant development of its lithium value chain, which not only means manufacturing batteries using partner technology by 2019, it also means producing locally assembled consumer electric vehicles from 2021.
This is first achieved by applying the new competitive approach I developed in 2014 to the sales data of electric vehicles by [country of origin]1]
As shown in Table 1, there are two important changes.
Table 1EV sales and EV Sales Market Share by Country of Origin: Seeking Alpha; EV-sales; EV-volumes; and Fleetcarma.
First, based on Michael Porter\'s original \"competitive as a market share\" paper, the percentage change in the market share of electric vehicle sales was utilized, rather than the percentage change in electric vehicle sales.
Second, in the increase and decrease of the percentage change in the sales ranking of electric vehicles, the concept of positive stability and negative stability was added, respectively, assuming that a fixed ranking in the upper half of the list of countries analyzed may have a positive dimension equivalent to increasing the ranking of electric vehicle sales, in contrast to its lower half, because maintaining the highest position in electric vehicle sales may require more effort than not doing so at the lowest level on the list.
The analysis period is 2011-
2017 for the purposes of this study, data were compiled for the list of six countries in China, the United States, Germany, Japan, France and South Korea.
Therefore, the top three countries have no yearson-
The annual percentage change in their EV sales rankings is considered to have increased their EV sales rankings, however, the countries that are located in the following three rankings are considered to be the countries where the electric vehicle sales rankings are down.
The new approach was then adjusted to analyze Germany\'s status as a potential partner in Bolivia (
Or any other producer of lithium)
Production Value of lithium-
Add goods according to the information contained in table 2.
Table 2 lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE)
Source: Table 1 and my own database, assuming that 1 kg of lithium carbonate equivalent is required for 1kWh (LCE).
After my previous article on this topic, I think it is necessary to rephrase my approach to being competitive in the global electric vehicle market before I can adapt to analyzing the cooperative potential of the global lithium industry.
First of all, we can look at the competitive power from the percentage change of electric vehicle sales market/LCE usage share, which means that the percentage change of electric vehicle sales market/LCE usage share in a country is greater, it may be a more competitive/better partner.
Of course, we can observe it from the percentage change of electric vehicle sales/LCE usage ranking, which means that the faster a country rises in ranking, it may be a more competitive/better partner.
In Tables 3 and 4, I present general procedures for these two analyses, which can be summarized as follows.
First of all, let\'s assume that we are facing a decline in the share of the electric vehicle sales market/LCE usage in any country and year.
It could mean two things.
First, the country is not performing well, and in this case the percentage change in the ranking of electric vehicle sales in this country has also declined, or assuming that the country is in the lower half of the list, the ranking of this country has changed to zero.
The other two countries performed better, however, the country showed a positive percentage change in the electric vehicle sales/LCE usage ranking, or assumed it was in the top half of the list, with a zero percentage change in its ranking.
As a result in the first case, due to a cumulative process, the country is the least competitive/considered the worst partner, the decline in the electric vehicle sales market/LCE usage share is exacerbated by a negative percentage assuming that it is in the lower half of the list, a change in EV sales/LCE usage or a zero percentage change in ranking.
In the second case, the result was that, due to the internal counter-Activity process, the country\'s competitive power was reduced/seen as a worse partner, through which, the share of the electric vehicle sales market/LCE usage decline countries have been eased by positive percentage changes in their electric vehicle sales/LCE usage rankings or zero percentage changes in their rankings.
Second, let\'s now look at the other side of the coin, that is, the increasing share of the electric vehicle sales market/LCE usage in any country and year.
It could mean two things.
First, the country performs well, in which case the percentage change in its electric vehicle sales ranking is also positive, or assuming it is in the upper half of the list, the ranking change in this country is zero.
The situation is worse for the other two countries, although our country reflects a negative percentage change in its EV sales/LCE usage rankings, or assuming it is in the lower half of the list, the zero percentage change in its EV sales ranking.
In the first case, the result was that the country was the most competitive/considered the best partner due to a cumulative process, more and more electric vehicle sales market/LCE usage share is further increased by Percentage Change assuming it is in the top half of the list, and its EV sales/LCE uses zero percentage change in ranking or ranking.
In the second case, the result was that the country was more competitive/found to be a better partner due to the external counter-Activity process, the negative percentage change of its EV sales/LCE assumes that the country is in the lower half of the list, and the zero percentage change using rankings or rankings is worse regulated by the fact that other countries perform.
Table 3 competition analysis program resources: Adapted from search for Alpha.
Table 4 partnership potential analysis program resources: adapted from the search for Alpha and Table 3.
The results of these exercises are shown in Table 5 and table 6 and can be integrated in the following points.
First, within the full time under consideration (2011-2017)
In terms of the production and sale of electric vehicles, China seems to be the most competitive country in the world, and the best potential partner in Bolivia or any other lithium-producing country to develop its lithium energy value chain, because the electric car it produces uses a lot of LCE, followed by the United States. S. and Germany.
Second, even during this time
Using our new competitive and partnership potential analysis process, the three countries are considered the most competitive and the best potential partners, only China has retained its first place in the past three years and two years.
In fact, the United StatesS.
Classified as less competitive in 20142017 and 2015-
Best Partner of the Year-
2017 and better partners in 2015
2017, while Germany remained the most competitive in 2014
2017, but the least competitive in the past two years, in these two 2014, the partner is worse
2017 and 2015-2017.
Third, the above findings can be explained by the percentage change in the electric vehicle sales market/LCE use stock, however, our approach does not find a huge difference in the share of electric vehicle sales market/LCE usage between these countries.
In fact, China\'s market share of electric vehicles in 2017 was nearly three times higher than that of the United States. S.
More than three times higher than Germany, even three times higher than the United StatesS.
Germany and Japan add up, while last year China\'s LCE usage share was more than 7 times higher than Germany\'s, and the US\'s LCE usage share was more than 5 times higher than Germany\'s [2].
Fourth, our new process does not explicitly consider the two dimensions of competition (cost-
Efficiency and technology)
I found this in my reply to my recent article on quotas for electric vehicles in China.
But, assuming cost-efficiency (quantity)
The dimensions of competence better explain the results of China and Germany than the United StatesS.
Where is the technology (quality)
The dimensions of competence seem to be most relevant, especially since \"Tesla-effect.
\"According to a recent report released by Electrek, it can now be confirmed, an unknown German senior carmaker has just paid more than four times the current average price for the Model 3 to buy the car in the second-hand market and transport it directly to Germany by air, perform a ten-day analysis of it before starting disassembly
Engineering and benchmarking of vehicles.
After providing some details about these actions, Electrek concluded that \"[It is] not possible at allBMW (OTCPK:BMWYY)]
Especially since Model 3 is often compared to the 3 Series.
\"Please note that Mercedes did the same with Tesla Model X in 2017, and Audi did the same in 2016.
Therefore, it is clear that German luxury car manufacturers are interested in Tesla\'s technology, which also confirms that they are behind the subversive company in this regard.
Similarly, InsideEVs reported in November 2017 that Xiaopeng automobile, a Chinese start-up company, took advantage of the US market and cloned Tesla\'s Model X. S.
Decision on the opening of automobile manufacturers
Its patent source.
Fifth, with respect to the partnership potential analysis, we assume that the use of LCE is significant and it is clear that the procedure fails to explain the factors behind the use of LCE in electric vehicle batteries in different countries.
However, it may be safe, which is a problem related to their average ability (in kWh)
Of these batteries, the most important thing is the ratio of phev to BEVs per country.
Therefore, during 2011-2017 the U. S.
Found to have the highest average capacity in its Li-ion batteries (30. 28 kWh)
Followed by China (26. 83 kWh)and Germany (14. 63 kWh)
China is the leader in production BEVs (71%)
The second is America. S. (56%)and Germany (50%).
Sixth, taking into account all the previous considerations, the President of Bolivia appeared to be wrong again this time when he argued that \"Germany will be Bolivia\'s most advanced and favorable choice.
Table 5EV sales: source of competitive analysis results: Table 1 and Table 3.
Table 6 lithium carbonate uses: Source of results for cooperative potential analysis: Tables 2 and 4. [1]
Sales data for electric vehicles by country of origin are actually compiled at the brand level.
Please note that when we mention Germany here, we are talking about electric cars produced and sold by German companies around the world.
This compilation was originally made by EV-Sales for 2017.
In addition to American figuresS.
German data seem to be very similar, but the situation in Germany seems to be reversed.
The reasons for the difference may be related to an estimated error in EV sales or insufficient data collected on this website, in some cases including information of only the top 20 (or less)
Models of electric vehicles sold in different countries around the world, and problems arising from the estimation of other models of electric vehicle sales based on these data by brand of origin. [2]
In the next post, I intend to redo this analysis using the electric vehicle sales data of the OEM group rather than the country, as EV-Sales.
Given that most business decisions are made at the corporate level rather than at the national level, this may be more appropriate.
This will also make it possible for us to include groups of automobile companies from different countries to cooperate in the form of joint ventures or parent companies
The subsidiary framework in the study.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any of the stocks mentioned and no plans to start any positions in the next 72 hours.
This article was written by myself and expressed my views.
I received no compensation (
In addition to Seeking Alpha).
I have no business relationship with any stock company mentioned in this article.
Editor\'s note: This article discusses one or more securities that are not traded on major US securitiesS. exchange.
Please note the risks associated with these stocks.