Indonesia gets bad news on EV batterys

[SilverStacker]

A nickle mining powerhouse gets the bad news. https://asiatimes.com/2026/07/byd-battery-breakthrough-crashes-indonesias-nickel-cartel-dream/

Actually Ive been reading less and less of the need for silver in future EV battery production as Industry explores more affordable ways of storing energy. Of course where silver shines is as a thin layer over the solid electrolytes which are prone to developing cracks when charging which over time cause the battery to fail.

Of course there are other metals ,minerals, and Industrial techniques with skin in the game. Silver, whatever its usage and achievements in EV battery's, is just in an already tight and expensive market with limited supplies available and a whole lot of Industrial uses already in play. Indonesia would have been wise to adjust to this formula instead of so aggressively advocating its nickle mining Industry, along with the Philippines, as the future of EV battery production. Because the truth is modern Industry has a lot of capability in finding acceptable alternatives to minerals and chemistry that, at scale, just don't produce an acceptable bottom line.

In other words just because its best in the laboratory doesn't mean it will automatically be put into production. Jakarta found this out the hard way

 

[pmbug]

Reality > Hype example # ???

 

[Lancers32]

While Silver is still an industrial metal it will eventually follow where Gold leads.

 

[SilverStacker]

The Island of New Caledonia in the south Pacific can't be to happy either. They have rich nickle deposits and the metal, along with tourism, is pretty much their entire economy. And to make it worse they have another problem, that of sharks eating their tourists and tourist trade because their fishing Industry is chucking to much fish guts in the water.

Nickle is so important as a strategic metal that the Battle of the Coral Sea was fought, among other reasons, to keep the Empire of Japan out of New Caledonia and its nickle mines. Nickle/steel alloys were vastly superior to steel alone in ways I wont bother to mention and the Allies had the Canadian nickle mines "90% to 95% of the worlds nickle" to draw on while the Axis scrambled for it.

 

[Voodoo]

Its still a unique and important metal. One application is hardly the be all or end all of Nickle.

 

[nickndfl]

Machine parts need nickle to harden steel, otherwise you only have chinesium.

 

[Voodoo]

Battery use only made it up to No 3 to the first source i found. Stainless steels of course are the largest use and Hi-Temp alloys for aerospace are second.

 

[SilverStacker]

Yes but nickle, when alloyed with steel, makes the steel far more durable and elastic. Able to withstand hits far better. And as you say very important in the aerospace sphere ; It is a essential component in modern technology and I dont see these mines losing money any time soon.

Even still its unwelcome news for investors in what clearly is the future of automotives. A huge market indeed. One powered by a number of potential rival battery technologys in whats clearly a rapidly evolving Industry.

The Germans played a cute card for nickle pre-WW2 and the Japanese less so. Not only didn't they have the cash reserves to import nickle by the tonnage but they didn't want to raise the suspicions of the Versailles signatories by doing so since nickle at the time, and still is, a vital metal used heavily for military technologys. Among many other things. So what did they do ? They bought it for use in their coinage, circulating what would later be seized by the Nazi Govt. in exchange for coinage made from cheaper and less important strategic metal.

And while Versailles didn't forbid them from importing nickle it did forbid them from building the industrys that would have made the purchasing viable. Even if they had the cash. Of course the Nazi's told the Allies to go pound sand when they simply ignored Versailles and the Nazi war machine began to receive shipments of nickle from the Soviets and if I remember right Sweden. But they never had the kind of access we had per the huge Canadian nickle mines at Sudbury Ontario and the French territory of New Caledonia.

As the new century emerged the "super weapons" of the time were the Battleships, the huge artillery pieces, and the tanks. All vastly improved by the new nickle steel alloys that allowed them to absorb hits far better and made them more durable.