Electric vehicle manufacturers are increasingly interested in securing a supply of raw materials for the production of their most important component: batteries. Last July, Tesla signed a nickel supply contract with the Australian mining company BHP and held talks in August with Wheaton Precious Metals, one of the world’s largest metal streaming companies (metal streaming involves financing mining companies in exchange for the right to purchase a portion of their future production at a discount), to secure a supply of cobalt. GM, for its part, announced an investment in the Australian company Controlled Thermal Resources, which hopes to produce lithium from thermal deposits in the U.S. These moves come on top of the memorandum of understanding signed by Volkswagen with the Chinese company Gangfeng—which has lithium projects in Argentina and Mexico—for a 10-year lithium supply contract, as well as the lithium mining projects that the Toyota Group has in Argentina.