The Novonix Ltd (ASX: NVX) share price is soaring ahead today.
The company's share price is currently lifting more than 9.42% to $2.44. For perspective, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is down 0.03% today.
Let's take a look at what could be impacting the Novonix share price.
What's going on
Novonix is a technology company operating in the lithium-ion battery industry. The company's share price may be rising today, but it is not the only technology share in the green.
The S&P/ASX All Technology Index is leaping 2.71% today. BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN) shares are lifting 6.64% today, while Link Administration Holdings Ltd (ASX: LNK) and Block Inc (ASX: SQ2) shares are rising 12% and 5% respectively. The technology heavy NASDAQ-100 Index jumped 1.55% in US markets on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has weighed into the battery materials industry today, urging companies to focus on the lithium refining business. Novonix's work involves enhancing the chemistry, cell designs and material processing technologies for electric batteries.
Speaking in a conference call to investors following Tesla's financial results, Musk said: "the mining is relatively easy" but the "refining is much harder".
So the lithium is actually a very common, sort of very, like lithium pretty much everywhere, but you have to refine the lithium into battery grade lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide, which has the extremely high purity.
So it is basically like minting money right now. There's like software margins in lithium processing right now.
Meanwhile, the Electric Vehicle Council has revealed there are more than 16,000 people on a wait list for an electric vehicle (EV). CEO Behyad Jafari is calling for a federal fuel standard to increase EV uptake. In comments at the Australian Clean Energy Summit cited by the Financial Review, Jafari said:
I can tell you exactly how many electric vehicles landed on Australian shores last year: it was 20,665 – because that's how many cars we sold. Every single one that arrived was sold.
Novonix share price snapshot
The Novonix share price has dived 73% year to date, while it has lost 6% in the past year. However, in the past week, the company's shares have lifted 18.45%.
For perspective, the ASX 200 has lost nearly 8% in a year.
Novonix has a market capitalisation of about $1.2 billion based on the current share price.
