Ann: Orocobre Limited - Cauchari Drilling Update, page-26

Intuitively, I agree with you. More expensive oil promotes EVs (and Li) as a substitute as thus they should be positively correlated. This is supported by research. There is a masters thesis entitled "What relationship exists between oil prices, lithium prices and electric vehicle growth: Is lithium really becoming a substitute for oil?" by Berthelsen which is easily searchable online. The finding is that increased oil prices cause a positively correlated change in EV sales, as well as variations in the lithium prices and not the other way around. So increased sale of EVs is not expected to have a significant impact on the oil prices. Regardless, I still see frequent comments referring to the opposite!