Speculating/gambling is a huge factor in anything that can be traded. But commodities also rely on physical deliveries which have influenced prices directly on various occasions. Of course for commodities also the selling side has direct influence on prices. That can go so far that for oil deliveries the tab is opened/closed on convenient times. So understanding prices is significantly more difficult than e.g. for stocks. Also speaking about the news part, a lot of data on commodities isn't freely available so you need to buy it. Trading itself on those is highly restricted - and speculative - anyway.

> Where as car sales might be stagnating but electric car sales are taking a larger portion of total car sales ie electric car sales/lithium use is still increasing.

I'm quite surprised the article doesn't mention sodium batteries. Li-Ion batteries are notorious for thermal runaways, so CATL and Tesla already shifted to LiFePO batteries quite some time ago. I think everybody would be more than happy to ditch Lithium based batteries altogether.