I am not surprised about this case, because when something becomes a trend and there is a high demand for it, there is also the possibility that the price or the value will increase, higher than it was before. So, lithium has now increased in value and that is because of the demand for it has also increased. Before when there was nothing like EV, and no one really cared much about lithium, the price was low and that was because the demand wasn’t much.
But, since the demand now is getting much and there are lots of companies now jumping on the production of EV, then you should also see the value increase as well to match the level of demand that there is. That is just the case here, and it would still go further.
I believe that this new increase is mainly due to the fact that 2020 and 2021 had a big problem with people going out, which in return meant oil prices dropped, at one point I remember something like negative, like literally pay to hold it let alone can earn from it. So now that we are back on track and now that we are working again and everything is nearly back to normal (even though covid is not done, it is getting better), that resulted with people using more and more oil.
So, oil companies went from "we need to halt all oil production because it worths nothing now!" to "we need to find more oil!!" in a single year, and that resulted with lack of oil, and obviously the price skyrocketed. Eventually the production and the demand will see eye to eye and that is when everything will be normally priced again, will take a while but it will surely happen.