Copper Will Still Be a Key Material for Electric Vehicles

Copper has been used in automotive applications for decades. It has been the material of choice for applications from radiators to wiring harnesses. Copper is also a key component in electric vehicles.

Besides cables and wires used for electrical interconnections, the material is also used in batteries, electric motors, inverters, and charging stations due to its durability, ductility, reliability, and superior conductivity.

A report by IDTechEx predicts that the demand for copper in the automotive sector is expected to grow by 5% annually over the next decade.

"Electrification will be the biggest boon to automotive copper demand," said Dr. James Jeffs, Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx. "Copper is used throughout the electric vehicle powertrain, from the foil in each battery cell to the winding in electric motors. Overall, each electric vehicle can generate over 30 kilograms of additional copper demand.

"Autonomous driving and electrification will drive growth, but the component that will account for the majority of demand will still be the wiring harness," Jeffs said. "The wiring harness is the central nervous system of the car, connecting all the sensors, actuators, lights, etc., to the brain of the vehicle.

"Every component in the system requires multiple wires responsible for communication and power delivery," Jeffs explained. "Since today's vehicles are very complex, containing hundreds of wiring components, the wiring harness has now expanded to thousands of individual wires, totaling several kilometers in length.

"Some players, like Tesla, are working to optimize vehicle networking, reducing system redundancy, thousands of meters of cables, and kilograms of weight per car," Jeffs noted. "This can be helped through system architecture changes.

According to Jeffs, some tier-two suppliers, like NXP, foresee an emerging zonal architecture approach, where wired components are grouped by location rather than function. "This helps eliminate redundancy in the wiring harness, but to fully exploit zonal architecture, a wiring-first mindset must be adopted, rather than considering wiring as an afterthought.”

According to Jeffs, optimization is just one threat to vehicle copper consumption. Substitution with aluminum, the use of 48-volt systems with smaller gauges, and wireless communication all aim to reduce copper in the wiring harness. These reducing factors will be offset by the increasing complexity of vehicles.

Jeffs believes that future lithium-ion battery chemistries will impact the copper intensity in batteries, with higher energy batteries typically returning lower copper intensity. He said that recent interest in magnet-less motors has changed due to neodymium price fluctuations.

"Wound rotor synchronous motors are an example of using copper electromagnets to effectively replace permanent magnets, nearly doubling the copper intensity compared to regular permanent magnet motors," Jeffs said.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) functions and autonomous driving are also trends that will generate more vehicle copper demand. These systems rely on a suite of sensors, including cameras, LiDAR, and radar. Each of these devices adds additional wiring to the vehicle and uses copper in its internal circuit boards.

"While the copper content per sensor is relatively small, typically just over 100 grams, for highly automated vehicles equipped with dozens of sensors, the total amount of copper can be several kilograms," Jeffs said. "The widespread adoption of level 3 technology over the next decade will be a significant driver for copper applications in ADAS and autonomous driving functions."