Platinum has been used for catalytic converters for diesel engines whereas palladium has been used for catalytic converters on gasoline engines. The decision to use palladium for the gasoline engines' catalytic converters was made back when palladium was much less expensive than platinum. Now that palladium is significantly more expensive than platinum, the automotive industry has expressed interest in switching from palladium to platinum for the gasoline engines' catalytic converters. I've heard some US government regulation agency said that the automotive industry already has the green light to use platinum instead of palladium, so now it's just a matter of when the industry decides to switch over. I'm pretty sure this recent news is what caused the spike up from ~$1,000 an ounce to ~$1,200 an ounce.
As far as rhodium goes, a few years ago it was $3,000 an ounce and last I heard it's now something like $20,000+ an ounce so clearly people are willing to pay for the stuff.
At the end of the day, the same physical properties which make gold and silver money also make platinum, palladium, and rhodium money as well. It would be inconsistent to suggest that gold and silver are money but the other three are not. It's just that we didn't have the knowledge of palladium and rhodium's existence nor the technology required to melt and refine platinum until relatively recently (from the perspective of human history). Once we got to the point where we knew about these metals and had the technology to melt/refine them, the globalist cabal had already started to take over and had manipulation schemes for all precious metals. If we ever return back to a truly free market then platinum, palladium, and rhodium will rightfully be considered to be money as gold and silver already are.
