Adamas' latest EV Battery Capacity Monthly report found EV sales grew only 19.6%, compared with deployed battery capacity growth of 69.4%.
In April, 6.7GWh of battery capacity was deployed in passenger battery-EVs (BEVs), plug-in EVs and hybrid EVs globally.
This rapid growth in battery capacity deployed stemmed from strong sales of high capacity, long range BEVs, like the Tesla Model 3, BYD Yuan, Nissan Leaf and Hyundai Kona, among others, relative to the year prior, Adamas said.
Adamas Intelligence data also indicates the sales-weighted average battery capacity (in kWh) increased at an equally-impressive 41.6% between April 2018 and April 2019, from 13.7kWh to 19.4kWh, taking into account sales of all passenger HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs, combined.
The rapidly expanding market penetration of EVs is expected to remain the largest driver of significant production shortfalls for critical energy metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper in the medium term.
