Forget water or data: its huge importance to EVs means many think of lithium as the “new oil”. Road transportation is currently the biggest source of global oil demand, after all – and one German company, with predictable literalism, now lets investors buy barrels of the metal that’s supplanting oil at the heart of travel.

A more conventional approach involves investing in shares of lithium miners and processors. Around 75% of global lithium production is controlled by just five firms: Albemarle, SQM, Ganfeng Lithium, Tianqi, and Livent. All of these companies are publicly traded, meaning you can easily buy their stock in a bid to profit from the surging demand for lithium.

That demand could surprise on the upside if “solid-state” batteries (more on which shortly) become commercially available faster than expected: these use proportionally more lithium than today’s dominant types. But demand could surprise on the downside if the cost and capacity of battery recycling improve faster than thought.

Cobalt and nickel are also widely used in lithium batteries. More familiar names such as Glencore, Vale, and BHP are the biggest suppliers of these metals – but between these mining giants and the lithium specialists, you may be better off with the latter lot. Not only do they offer more direct exposure to the EV megatrend, but they carry less ethical and environmental baggage (at least for now).

There’s also much more to creating battery-ready lithium than simply getting the metal out the ground. The chemical conversions required to transmute raw lithium into a manufacturing-grade substance are a boon for our lithium producers: the additional complexity they add to simply securing exclusive access to lithium deposits increases the industry’s barriers to entry.

The next step on our journey sees battery producers buy the lithium and other metals and use them to build the battery packs which power electric vehicles. The biggest battery companies include CATL, Panasonic, LG Chem, Samsung SDI, SK Innovation, and EV manufacturer BYD, which makes its own. (Tesla – which mainly uses Panasonic’s batteries – is reportedly considering a similar approach.)

There’s also a growing list of startups focusing on the development of next-generation “solid-state” battery tech – which aim to overcome many of the performance shortcomings today’s EVs still exhibit compared to their fossil-fuel counterparts. Besides promising to increase range by 80% and provide ultra-fast charging, solid-state batteries have longer lifespans, are non-combustible, and can withstand subzero temperatures.

Names to watch here include Ionic Materials, Sion Power, Solid Power, and QuantumScape. As of the time of writing, however, only QuantumScape’s shares are publicly listed – and with no company yet to nail large-scale production, this is a risky area. A safer and more efficient approach might be to gain exposure to a diversified basket of battery-focused stocks through an exchange-traded fund (ETF) such as Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF (ticker: LIT).

Don’t forget that both lithium producers and battery manufacturers are also benefiting from the broader shift towards renewable energy. Large-scale lithium battery storage systems are increasingly being used to help electricity grids cope with wind and solar power’s naturally fluctuating supply – setting excess aside for a rainy day.