Batteries not included
Juicing up electric vehicles
Good morning, charge chasers. This is your Stock Market Rundown for December 13th, 2023. Thanks for riding along with me. Let’s get moving:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: SMALL SIZE, BIG POWER
When it comes to trends for 2024, gasoline is out, and lithium is in. It’s a silvery-white metal, but you’re not going to see it in a display case at Tiffany—lithium is used in heavy-duty industrial applications, like manufacturing steel and aluminum.
Lithium also has a big role in the green energy transition, because it’s a key component of the rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles. In fact, a typical EV battery contains 17 pounds of lithium carbonate, along with other raw materials like nickel, copper, and the tears of oil-company executives.
The stampede to launch EVs has given the world’s automakers an insatiable hunger for lithium. Scaling up US domestic manufacture of the metal is a strategic priority—mine operators are breaking ground on multiple new projects.
Even crusty old fossil-fuel supermajors are getting their fingers into the lithium pie: Exxon Mobil is developing a mine in Arkansas that will produce thousands of metric tons a year by 2027. The mine will eventually churn out enough lithium for over a million electric vehicles annually.
Ironically, Exxon actually invented the rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the 1970s, in groundbreaking work that won the scientist behind it a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. But it took decades for the battery to be commercialized and make it into laptops, phones, and cars.
Considering the strides EVs are making to slash oil consumption, if the execs at Exxon could get in a time machine, they might be tempted to hurl the first-ever lithium battery into the parking-lot dumpster.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, told a senate committee hearing he’s opposed to crypto and wants it shut down: “The only true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers… money laundering, tax avoidance.” Ouch… guess JP Morgan won’t be offering 24/7 Bitcoin trading any time soon.
Wendy’s had better flip those burgers a little faster. An activist investor who owns a stake in the chain is planning a board challenge to force a turnaround effort. The stock’s price has sunk this year, as the burger shack’s sales growth in recent quarters has been colder than a chocolate Frosty.
If you thought getting a reservation at a Michelin-star restaurant was tough, try securing a spot in line to traverse the Panama Canal. Due to an ongoing drought, the key waterway is so backed up that vessels are paying extra to skip the line. It’s the seafaring version of a Disneyland Speed Pass that lets you jump the queue at Splash Mountain.
Putting holiday gifts under the Fraser fir just got pricier. A survey of 55 tree wholesalers found that most planned to hike prices on Christmas trees this year by up to 20%. Maybe it’s time to switch to a fake version, since your cat is going to knock it over anyway.
That’s all for today, amigos; see you at the usual time tomorrow morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe
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