LONDON, July 11 Reuters China39;s looming gallium export controls leave automakers with a dilemma over whether they can continue to rely on a metal which had been seen as a game changer for electric vehicles.

Gallium is currently used in a wide variety of applications, from LEDs to smaller mobile phone adaptors. Little known to most people, gallium in pure form can melt in your hand but in a couple of compounds has become sought after for semiconductors.

Automakers are hungry for anything that boosts EV efficiency and reduces weight, helping them to cut costs. Gallium Nitride does both and is far cheaper than other semiconductor materials like platinum or palladium.

Gallium is found in trace amounts in zinc ores and in bauxite, and gallium metal is produced when processing bauxite to make aluminium. Around 80 is produced in China, according to the European industry association Critical Raw Materials Alliance CRMA.

For EVs, the compound gallium nitride can handle a lot of power without generating heat making it ideal for onboard chargers and possibly inverters, which help control the flow of electricity to and from the battery pack.

Gallium nitride is a huge game multiplier, said Umesh Mishra, cofounder at Goleta, Californiabased Transphorm, which is developing chips using the compound.

Transphorm uses ultra thin layers of gallium nitride that are a micron, or one thousandth of a millimetre thick, on its semiconductors.

You can either charge faster with the…