The primary and most expensive component within a battery-electric vehicle (BEV), is the battery pack. These battery packs are comprised of lithium, cobalt, graphite, and nickel. These precious metals are mined from a variety of sources like surface, underground, or within bodies of water. Once scaled-up to meet the BEV demand, these operations will have significant environmental, social, and geopolitical effects. A large amount of the current production and reserves for these metals come from countries that United States has an adversarial relationship with like Cuba, China, and Russia or countries where it is possible human rights violations could occur during the mining process. (Table 3)

The United States does have approximately 3.4% of the reserves of lithium and has recently identified an additional large deposit in the Smackover region in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana.  However these facilities will take years to develop while the United States would require imports of the other precious metals going forward. Additionally, the commercial truck sector will be competing with the personal vehicle market for the raw materials.  (NS Energy)