This is an interesting book written in 2011 about Lithium and EVs. It's Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher. There is a chapter on Western Lithium called "The Prospectors."

Here is a choice quote from the author taken from a conference he attended in Las Vegas before going on a tour of Thacker Pass.

"I asked Monika-Engel Bader, the husky voiced German president of Chemetall what she thought of Western Lithium's prospects.'They don't have a chance', she said wearily while lighting a cigarette."