Electric vehicle manufacturers are increasingly interested in securing supplies of raw materials for the manufacture of their most important component, batteries. Last July, Tesla signed a nickel supply contract with Australian mining company BHP and has been in 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 part of their future production at a discount), to supply it with cobalt. GM, for its part, announced an investment in Australia's Controlled Thermal Resources, a company that hopes to produce lithium from thermal deposits in the US. These moves come on top of the memorandum of understanding signed by Volkswagen with China's Gangfeng, which has lithium projects in Argentina and Mexico, for a 10-year supply contract for this metal, and the lithium mining projects that the Toyota Group has in Argentina.