Résumé : |
We have recently intended to an abrupt change of trend in car industry. The Diesel Gate in 2015 signed a turning point for the future of cars, by unveiling the underestimation of Volkswagen cars’ pollution, the media have constrained car companies to change their strategy for the next 10 years. Due to population’s rising awareness about climate change and the environmental restriction of governments, Volkswagen, as one of the top car seller, announced in 2018 the launch of 80 new electrical vehicles by 2025 and the Global Battery Alliance bet on 300 new electrical vehicles by 2025 . Recently, with the Covid-19 crisis, car industry is under pressure and needs to find a way to re-launch the production of cars and increase the consumption. The French government announced in May 2020 the creation of 100 000 charging stations in the year and the implementation of a bonus rewarding consumers buying an electric vehicle . On top of that, French government and executives of French car companies announced that they expect to reach 600 000 electric cars sold a year by 2022, what is 5 times the current sales, what will represent a real challenge . This trend will induce a proportional rise in lithium-ion battery consumption because it is the type of battery mostly used for these vehicles. So, the car industry needs a reliable supply chain with a growing quantity of EVs’ batteries, by considering the batteries as key component with a high technology still in development. Moreover, the materials used to create a lithium-ion battery are composed of strategic resources such as lithium and cobalt which are highly polluting, rare and have high variations of price. These issues raise several questions: “How to ensure a sustainable supply chain for lithium-ions batteries in car industry?”, By “sustainable” I refer to reliable to follow the production cadence, the need of technology quality, respectful of environment, without negative externalities on populations and profitable for each actor. Throughout the report, the analysis will target the threat on those three categories. I believe some elements remain to analyse on this topic to close the loop of the batterie’s sustainable supply chain and defining its future. This report has for objective to give an overview of the potential closed loop supply chain and to bring solutions to reach this final state. The interests to produce this report are high because we are talking about one of the most strategic product for the neutral carbon future of individual transport: the vehicle’s battery. To assess the current supply chain, I will bring an outlook of the electric vehicles and try to understand the future demand and expectations from the supply chain through an example of lithium ion’s battery. In a second part, I will describe each step of the lithium batteries’ production from the raw materials’ extraction to the pack manufacturing. I will proceed these information to create a simulation of the CATL NCM622 battery pack supply chain. This battery is one of the most common lithium ion‘s battery and equips, among other brands, Nissan, BMW, PSA and Volvo . Then, I will assess the current main practices in the batteries’ supply chain through criteria, dispatched in 3 main categories, in order to target the main elements needed to reach a sustainable supply chain or to be as close as possible of this goal.
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