Silver is at the heart of the global automotive industry. As the metal with the highest electrical conductivity, it is present in dozens of systems in modern vehicles. It is truly indispensable, and demand for silver in this sector is growing rapidly and is expected to approach 2,500 tonnes by 2025.

However, there are some applications in this sector where silver's other properties make it less ideal. For example, as a relatively soft metal, silver and silver alloys can wear out quickly in some applications. 

An example is in electric vehicle chargers. Repeated insertion and removal (known as "mating") of high-power industrial chargers can cause wear on the silver surfaces and have a significant impact on the durability of the device itself. 

For this reason, alternative coatings such as hard gold alloys and palladium-nickel alloys have generally been used in such environments.

However, these materials are relatively expensive, which makes silver-based alternatives with improved physical properties, such as the silver-graphite combination, attractive.

Source : Silver Institute