A metal being designed out of the battery
Cobalt is a metal that some electric vehicle battery chemistries use to help the battery stay stable, while other chemistries use none at all. Chemistry here means the specific mix of metals combined inside a battery. The Cobalt Institute, an industry association, counts cobalt containing chemistries at 64% of the world electric vehicle battery market in 2022, falling to 60% in 2023 and 53% in 2024.
This is the electric vehicle specific figure. The total battery market figure, which includes stationary storage batteries, sits a few points lower each year and is not shown here.
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| 2022 | 64 |
| 2023 | 60 |
| 2024 | 53 |
What is replacing it
The chemistry replacing cobalt is lithium iron phosphate, which contains no cobalt at all. The United States Geological Survey, the government agency that tracks mineral supply, states plainly that cobalt content in lithium ion batteries is being decreased, and that cobalt free substitutes already hold significant market share in China. The chemistries that still use cobalt now lean on it lightly. Two of them, high nickel chemistries called NMC721 and NMC811, hold around 10% cobalt in their metal content excluding lithium. Together with a third chemistry, lithium nickel cobalt aluminium oxide, which holds 15% cobalt, they made up roughly 80% of 2025 electric vehicle battery deployment among the chemistries that still use cobalt at all.
Less cobalt for every car sold
The Cobalt Institute reports that cobalt demand from electric vehicles grew 21% in 2024 while the combined battery electric and plug in hybrid fleet buying it grew 26% in the same year. Dividing the institute own 2 figures for that year, 95,000 tons of cobalt across 17.5 million vehicles, gives an average of about 5.4 kilograms of cobalt in an electric vehicle sold worldwide in 2024. That average is a MAOWCE calculation, not a figure the institute states directly. World cobalt mine production grew only about 3% in 2025, from 302,000 to 310,000 tons, according to the United States Geological Survey, while battery capacity going into cars worldwide grew almost 30% in the same year, according to the International Energy Agency, a MAOWCE comparison of those 2 sourced figures. Part of that gap is the cobalt export ban imposed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which held mine growth down for part of 2025, not chemistry change alone.
The chemistry with no cobalt at all, growing fastest in China
Lithium iron phosphate share of electric car sales in China rose from 36% in 2020 to 63% in 2023 and 70% in 2024, according to the Cobalt Institute.
Lithium iron phosphate batteries contain no cobalt, so this chart is the mirror image of the cobalt chemistry chart above, in the single market where the shift has gone furthest.
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| 2020 | 36 |
| 2023 | 63 |
| 2024 | 70 |
The same chemistry also cost more than 40% less per kilowatt hour than higher cobalt chemistries in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency. A kilowatt hour is the unit that measures how much energy a battery pack can store. Car makers in China had a financial reason to choose the cobalt free chemistry, not only a supply reason.
Why lithium mining keeps growing
Lithium iron phosphate needs no cobalt, but it still needs lithium, and so does every other chemistry sold at scale today. World lithium consumption grew 20% in 2025 alone, reaching 263,000 tons, according to the United States Geological Survey. Battery packs are also still growing. The average battery electric car pack sold in the United States in 2025 held 90 kilowatt hours, up around 5%, according to the International Energy Agency. Mining per vehicle is falling for cobalt because car makers are choosing chemistries that use less of it or none. It is not falling for lithium, because every one of those chemistries still needs that metal, and the packs holding it keep getting bigger.