Bottlenecks costs related

This chapter evaluates the worldwide availability of lithium resources, comparing updated data which reflect the reality of the market, particularly in terms of the evolution of market share and price of lithium, which are likely to impact the manufacturing costs of electric vehicles. Particular attention is paid to the origin and nature of all types of resources and to the current structure of the lithium industry. Finally, the question of the bottleneck relating to geostrategic aspects will be debated and prospective avenues for improvement will be given with a view to solving the problems raised here. 

Activity-based costing It is analysing the cost of an operation at each processing step. In addition to measuring direct costs it covers bottlenecks, delays, and other time-related activities to highlight areas of inefficiencies in an operation. 

With respect to mechanical properties, the effect of any mineral filler is firstly related to particle size and particle size distribution. For instance, the impact resistance of a PP-talc composite strongly depends on those two filler characteristics, and it is easily understood that particles with excessive dimensions are likely to be fracture initiation sites. For mineral fillers which are extracted from lodes, grinding and sorting are thus key preparation steps, with obviously processing costs that dramatically increase as the targeted (average) particle size decreases. The balance between the benefits in mechanical or physical properties and the extra-cost of filler addition is therefore the bottleneck of all applications for filled thermoplastics. 

---