Last night, Channel 7 aired the latest episode of their Spotlight program. The focus was on Indonesian mining practices that reportedly result in emission between 9 and 11x higher than Australian operations.
While it’s clear that workplace health and safety practices in Indonesia are clearly lacking compared to our standards here, the main focus and headline of the story targeted electric vehicles.
The show title was ‘The EV con: Spotlight investigation into the deadly side of electric vehicles sold in Australia’.
During the episode, the presenter spent much of the time attempting to make EV owners feel guilty for their vehicle purchase, suggesting they are fueling issues in the supply chain.
The problem with this conclusion, is that it’s not found in evidence.
Firstly, Nickel is used across many industries including Aerospace, Electronics, Chemical, Medical, Stainless Steel production and yes, Automotive.
Battery chemistry is also important to break down. The show failed to differentiate between battery types, of which different automakers use different types.
NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt)
This battery uses common ratios like NMC 811 (80% nickel, 10% manganese, 10% cobalt) rely heavily on high-purity nickel to maximize energy density, which extends EV range.
NCA (Nickel Cobalt Aluminum)
Used in some high-performance EVs (e.g., Tesla models), also depends on Class I nickel for similar reasons.
LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate)
Battery chemistry is a type of lithium-ion battery that uses lithium iron phosphate as the cathode material. Unlike high-nickel chemistries like NMC or NCA, LFP batteries do not contain nickel. Instead, they rely on iron and phosphate, offering a different set of advantages such as improved safety, thermal stability, and lower cost, though they have lower energy density compared to nickel-based batteries.
No we understand battery chemistry a little better, we can now focus on another key point.,
The demand for Class I nickel has surged due to the EV boom, with companies like Tesla, CATL, and LG Chem driving the need for high-purity supplies. Major producers of Class I nickel, such as Canada (Vale, Glencore), Russia (Nornickel), and Australia (BHP), are key players in supplying this grade, often from sulfide ore deposits.
Meanwhile, efforts are underway to upgrade some Class II nickel (from laterite ores in places like Indonesia) into battery-grade material, but this requires costly and energy-intensive conversion processes.
In short, the Nickel coming out of a dirty mine in Indonesia is not likely to meet the standards battery manufacturers require.
Now here’s the kicker.
At the end of the interview, the Channel 7 journalist claimed that ‘with much of the nickel used in electric vehicles sold in Australia coming from Indonesia…’
This is simply not accurate.
Tesla and BYD dominate EV sales charts in Australia and both make their vehicles in China, Tesla in Shanghai and BYD in across Xi’an (Shaanxi), Shenzhen (Guangdong), Changsha (Hunan), Zhengzhou (Henan), Changzhou (Jiangsu), Jinan (Shandong), and Hefei (Anhui). These plants produce the electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that are shipped to Australia, such as the BYD Atto 3, Dolphin, Seal, Sealion 6, and Shark 6.
Statements from EV makers
At the end of the program, we heard that EV makers were asked to comment on the supply chain and instead of including that detail, the audience were pointed to the show’s website (which a small percentage will actually do).
Well, I did and you can too (here).
Honda, Volkswagen, Ford, Hyundai, Chery, BMW, and Deepal all made efforts to respond to Spotlight’s questions regarding the use of nickel from Indonesia in their EV batteries.
Spotlightalso contacted GWM (Great Wall Motors. which owns Haval), GM, Zeekr, Tesla, MG, Volvo, and Audi, but these companies didn’t respond.
All companies were asked if they source nickel from Indonesia directly or indirectly, through a third-party battery supplier.
The problem for Channel 7 and their story about ‘The EV con’.. is that none of these statements confirm the use of nickel from Indonesia’s ‘dirty mines’ which featured in the show.
It’s really disappointing to see information being presented as fact when there’s simply not the evidence to back it up. It’s hard to know what the specific motivations where, but given it’s election time, politics are an unfortunate likely source of motivation.
