Government investment constitutes a large portion of overall investment in research and development of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and other future battery technologies with the goal of electrifying the transportation sector and so removing a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions.
By 2030, about 70% of global lithium-ion battery demand is anticipated to come from passenger EVs, further underscoring the indispensable role of batteries in transitioning towards a low-carbon future. The value of lithium-ion batteries, encompassing mining through to recycling, is projected to grow exponentially, surpassing $400 billion by 2030.
As demand for electrical energy storage scales, production networks for lithium-ion battery manufacturing are being re-worked organisationally and geographically. The UK - like the US and EU - is seeking to onshore lithium-ion battery production and build a national battery supply chain.
These gaps reflect limits in the scope and scale of the UK government's efforts to act as an ‘entrepreneurial state’ with regard to lithium-ion batteries, particularly in the context of growing competition from Europe and the US in the wake of the US Inflation Reduction Act.
The UK too is seeking to onshore global production networks for lithium-ion batteries (LiB) and build a domestic battery supply chain. The UK case is instructive as the geopolitical dynamics of onshoring centre on maintaining the UK's role as an automobile manufacturing platform in the post-Brexit period rather than a general ‘global race’.
Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are a critical part of daily life. Since their first commercialization in the early 1990s, the use of LIBs has spread from consumer electronics to electric vehicle and stationary energy storage applications. As energy-dense batteries, LIBs have driven much of the shift in electrification over the past two decades.