Lithium prices are soaring. Add it to the list of challenges that TeslaTSLA –8.33% and its rival makers of electric vehicles are facing. Higher lithium prices can drive up battery costs, but that isn’t even the biggest battery issue EV makers face.
Lithium miners’ earnings guidance simply blew analyst and investors’ expectations out of the water on Wednesday—mainly because lithium prices are up a lot. Spot lithium prices are up about 67% year to date.
Albemarle (ticker: ALB) now expects full-year 2022 sales of about $5.4 billion, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization—or Ebitda—of about $1.85 billion. Back in February, the company guided investors to about $4.4 billion in 2022 sales and $1.2 billion in Ebitda. Wall Street, coming into the quarter, was projecting about $4.4 billion in sales and $1.3 billion in Ebitda.
The new Ebitda guidance was more than 50% above the old guidance and more than 40% above the Street’s models. For the miner Livent (LTHM), new Ebitda guidance was almost 80% above prior guidance and about 45% more than Wall Street projections.
