A battery chemistry is the specific mix of metals used inside the cathode, the part of a battery that stores its energy while it charges. Two chemistries dominate electric vehicle batteries today, lithium iron phosphate, called LFP, and nickel manganese cobalt, called NMC, named for the 3 metals inside it. Together they already make up more than 90% of the lithium ion batteries sold for electric vehicles, according to Bain and Company, a consulting firm.
In China, the largest electric vehicle market in the world, LFP already held 64% of the battery market in 2024. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a materials data firm, forecasts that share will climb to 76% by 2030, a rise of 12 percentage points in 6 years.
The rest of the world is not moving the same way. Figures from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence for 2024 show LFP held just 8% of the battery market in Europe, 7% in North America, 4% in South Korea and 0% in Japan. Those 4 regions are still built mostly around NMC.
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| China | 64 |
| Europe | 8 |
| North America | 7 |
| South Korea | 4 |
| Japan | 0 |
Where the balance barely moves
The Benchmark Mineral Intelligence forecast for 2030 shows that balance barely moving in 2 of those regions. The share of the North American battery market held by NMC is forecast to ease from 71% in 2024 to 69% in 2030. In Europe, the NMC share is forecast to rise slightly, from 69% in 2024 to 71% in 2030.
South Korea and Japan carry a 2024 figure in the source but no stated 2030 projection, so they are left out of this chart rather than mixed with regions that have both years.
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| North America 2024 | 71 |
| North America 2030 | 69 |
| Europe 2024 | 69 |
| Europe 2030 | 71 |
The pace of change
The pace of change is already faster than an older forecast expected. In December 2023, Roland Berger, a consulting firm, forecast that LFP combined with a related chemistry, lithium manganese iron phosphate or LMFP, would reach 37% of the global light vehicle battery market by 2030, up from 27% in 2023. CRU Group, a materials research firm, states that LFP alone, in an electric vehicle context, had already reached 52% by 2025, up from 13% in 2019, 5 years before that 2030 target. That suggests the 2023 forecast is now too low.
Bain and Company, the same firm that tracks how car makers respond to that shift, states plainly what a battery chemistry choice costs an automaker.
Batteries are the single biggest cost driver for OEMs and they influence product performance.
Mahadevan Seetharaman, partner in the advanced manufacturing services practice at Bain and Company. Source 3.
An independent review points the same way without matching the Benchmark Mineral Intelligence numbers. MITRE, a nonprofit research group that prepared its own assessment for the United States Department of Defense, states that nickel based chemistries remain dominant in North America today but that their global market share is projected to shrink, matching the direction Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and Bain and Company both point toward.