more than $1 billion a year in Australia for raw materials for its electric vehicle batteries. According to Robyn Denholm, chair of the US carmaker, given the focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) in this green energy age, the developing supply chains for EV batteries will exceptionally benefit rich minerals found in Australia.
“We expect our spend on Australian minerals to increase to more than $1 billion per annum for the next few years,” she said during a Minerals Council of Australia event. “Australian mining companies do have a good reputation, great expertise, professionalism and are preferred by manufacturers increasingly concerned about meeting both today’s and the future’s ESG requirements,” she added.
According to Denham, over a third of Tesla’s nickel feedstock and three-quarters of its lithium are already sourced from the Pacific nation. On the other hand, the American carmaker also supplies batteries to the Pacific nation in order to store solar energy that is captured, as Australia has the highest per capita density of rooftop solar panels in the world.
Nevertheless, Australia has been often criticised for its lack of efforts to mitigate climate change. As a result, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was in fact denied a speaking slot at the global leaders’ climate summit in December last year. One of the main reasons for the federal government’s failure to make any concrete commitments towards this global effort is owing to the economy’s noteworthy reliance on the mining industry, with the sector being the largest economic contributor in 2019-20.
