IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v320y2025ics0360544225008850.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable lithium supply for electric vehicle development in China towards carbon neutrality

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Qi
  • Huang, Zhenyue
  • Liu, Boyu
  • Ma, Tian

Abstract

Global carbon neutrality efforts have spurred the electric vehicle (EV) boom, increasing the demand for lithium. As the global leader in EV adoption and the largest consumer of lithium, China faces a severe lithium shortage, characterized by high import dependence. Therefore, a simulation framework combining Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and nonlinear optimization was developed to assess sustainable lithium supply for EV in China. The obtained results show that: i) By 2050, annual EV sales are projected to reach 35.2 million, 18 times of the 2020 level. During 2024 to 2050, the maximum difference in cumulative lithium demand across different scenarios for EV market diffusion and battery market structure reaches 8.8 and 23.2 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (Mt LCE), respectively. ii) Overall import dependence is expected to gradually decline from 75.7% in 2024 to an average of 16.3% by 2050 across various scenarios, primarily owing to the lithium recycling increase. Lithium shortages will happen between 2030 and 2040, with the most severe annual shortage reaching 46.9% of demand under trade protectionism scenarios. iii) Eliminating potential lithium shortages in China will depend on the implementation of countermeasures, such as production incentives, recycling promotion, adoption of alternatives, and resource conservations.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Qi & Huang, Zhenyue & Liu, Boyu & Ma, Tian, 2025. "Sustainable lithium supply for electric vehicle development in China towards carbon neutrality," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:320:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225008850
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.135243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225008850
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2025.135243?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:320:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225008850. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.