An aerial view shows the brine pools of SQM lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile on Jan. 10, 2013.
Ivan Alvarado | Reuters
As auto companies race to develop electric vehicles, an opportunity for investors to cash in is emerging: the miners extracting the raw materials needed to fuel these cars and trucks.
"I just don't see that there's going to be enough supply of raw materials … and I think it's going to be a massive bottleneck," said Vance Brown, portfolio manager at Williams Jones Wealth Management. "Lithium is a vital, essential element… I would even go so far as to say it's a new industrial revolution."
Different combinations of minerals including lithium, nickel, graphite and cobalt are used to make electric vehicle batteries, but lithium is the constant across battery chemistries.