Boom-and-bust cycles all tend to look the same. A consumer fad or industrial urgency fuels demand for a product. Prices rise. Producers invest in capacity. By the time new supply materialises it outstrips already sated demand. Prices crash. Then, at some point, things get so cheap as to set off another demand upswing. And so on.
The inevitability is comforting for bosses in industries from mining to chipmaking. Not, though, in battery manufacturing. Anticipating booming demand for electric vehicles (EVs), since 2018 companies around the world have ploughed more than $520bn into battery-making, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a research firm. Sure enough,
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