Researchers Believe Nickel-Based Battery Electric Vehicles Need Incentives

KatadataOTO – The downstreaming of nickel that the government is currently promoting aims to form a competitive ecosystem for the lithium battery and electric vehicle value chain.

However, in reality, many electric cars, especially those from China, are currently using LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries, not NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt).

In fact, researchers believe it is important for the government to provide more support to electric car manufacturers that already use nickel-based batteries.

So that in the future, the country's nickel potential can be utilized. There needs to be a regulation to manage this.

Photo : Yonhap

“So when creating incentives, we must look at those that are nickel-based,” said Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Evvy Kartini, Founder of the National Battery Research Institute, when met at the Populix x Forwot event in Jakarta on Tuesday (01/07).

According to Prof. Evvy, a CEO representative from PT HLI Green Power, a joint venture between LG and Hyundai, admitted that they find it difficult to compete because they are NMC-based.

“The government should support nickel-based (EVs). It's clear, nickel-based cannot compete with LFP,” Prof. Evvy continued.

In terms of price, electric cars with NMC batteries are indeed more expensive than LFP. As a rough comparison, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and BYD Sealion 7 are in the same class, but there is a price difference of almost Rp 100 million for their respective base models.

It should be noted that Hyundai uses nickel-based NMC batteries, while BYD is equipped with LFP material Blade Battery.

Price is still one of the determining factors for many consumers when purchasing a vehicle. 

“(Consumers) will only ask about the price. (For example) a Hyundai Ioniq 5 is Rp 800 million, a BYD is Rp 600 million, you will choose BYD,” he said.

Photo : BYD

If domestic nickel can be utilized to make the price of NMC-battery electric cars competitive, Indonesia's nickel downstreaming process is considered to be more optimal.

He pointed out the fact that Indonesia is the world's largest nickel-producing country. So it is important for the government to encourage the use of NMC, especially for four-wheeled motor vehicles.

“So, like it or not, those (nickel-battery electric cars) are the ones that must be given incentives, and LFP-based vehicles must be restricted. It's as simple as that,” Prof. Evvy asserted.