Free Republic

Developing lithium shortages could pose a very big problem for the up and coming electric car industry. According to recent statistics, demand is already outstripping supply by 15%, which explains why the price of lithium has moved higher since the start of the higher. But it’s not finished yet. Experts says this number is about to spike much higher. We know that Chevy is releasing the Bolt this year and that will put further weight on the market, but it’s Elon Musk’s plans for Tesla that could really put pressure on resource producers. The company is preparing to role out...

Not long ago, many experts were projecting gas prices above $5 per gallon for the U.S. President Barack Obama said “with more research and incentives” there would soon be 1 million electric plug-in cars on the road. The top executive at General Motors claimed the company could sell 120,000 Chevy Volts in a year. That was in 2011, when GM’s electric plug-in car was still in its infancy. Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm very publicly bought her own Chevy Volt after telling the media that electric car batteries represented the “beginning of new Michigan.” That didn't happen, despite massive spending...

With the extension of California’s landmark climate change law stalled, a legislative plan is emerging to significantly up the ante on California’s commitment to electric vehicles by requiring that 15 percent of all new automobiles be emission-free within a decade. Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, D-Los Angeles, told The Associated Press on Friday that she’ll introduce legislation next week to ramp up the pressure on carmakers. Automakers that fail to sell enough electric vehicles would be required to make payments to rivals that do or pay a fine to the state.“If we create more competition in the market, that automatically will trigger...

So far, lithium has been the hottest metal of 2016, beating out gold, with exponential demand expected over the coming years. Although the price trajectory of the metal has been subdued in recent months, the fundamentals behind the long-term trajectory suggest strong potential for long-term growth. Price doubling from 2014/2015 was first seen in China and is now being felt worldwide, with lithium hydroxide prices from $16-20 and carbonate prices from $12-14 thousand USD per ton.

There are millions of trucks on the world’s highways at any given time, carrying cargo from one place to another and spewing diesel exhaust fumes. That’s how it’s been since the dawn of trucking, that’s how it still is. But that’s not necessarily how it will be in the future. Electric trucks are a fact, though not a very popular one, which is undeserved to a certain degree. While short-haul deliveries are perfect for utilizing electric freight carriers, a long-haul electric truck would need a battery weighing 23 tons to be able to make a 500-mile journey in one go....

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed Wednesday to set aside some €600 million ($675 million) of taxpayers’ money to encourage people to buy electric cars — via an “environmental bonus.” The costs of the scheme will be shared with the auto industry, which is also putting up €600 million. New car-buyers stand to get a €4,000 ($4,500) subsidy if they buy a purely electric car, and €3,000 if they opt for a hybrid car, which combines a battery and a small combustion engine. Not only that, electric cars will be exempt from motor vehicle taxes for 10 years. Economy Minister Sigmar...

Daily Caller News Foundation Electric Vehicles Emit More Pollutants Than Fossil Fuel-Burning Cars, Says Study A study from the University of Edinburgh shows that electric and hybrid vehicles emit as many, if not more, atmospheric toxins than fossil fuel-burning vehicles. The study, conducted by Victor Timmers and Peter Achten at the University of Edinburgh, and published by the journal Atmospheric Environment, found that heavier electric vehicles produce as many pollutants as their lighter weight conventional vehicles. Electric vehicles tend to produce more pollutants from tire and brake wear, due in large part to their batteries, as well as the other...

Germany plans to subsidize electric cars in a bid to help the country’s auto industry compete in the global market for the growingly-popular and environmentally friendly vehicles. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble says starting May buyers will get €4,000 ($4,514.80) to buy an all-electric vehicle. Plug-in hybrids will receive a subsidy of up to €3,000. The cost will be shared equally by the government and industry. …

Mercedes introduces the Double A class luxury sedan with a top speed of 52 mph , a touch screen dash info system that tracks battery life, a spacious trunk for spares, an onboard satellite tracking system and a ribbon release auto dump feature. No charging stations are required and there are zero emissions. The vehicle comes with a lifetime drive train warranty.

The unveiling of Tesla’s Model 3 electric car was no less than the lifting of the final curtain on a game-changing energy revolution. And if we follow that revolution to its core, we arrive at lithium—our new gasoline for which the feeding frenzy has only just begun. Unveiled just on 31 March and already with 325,000 orders, it seems that the market, too, understands that the Model 3 is more than just another electric vehicle. In one week alone, Tesla has racked up around $14 billion in implied future sales, making it the “biggest one-week launch of any product ever.”...

Reducing 1.2 tonnes of CO₂ on the EU emissions trading system costs £5; but instead, the UK Government subsidises each car with £4,500. All of the world’s electric cars sold so far have soaked up £9 billion in subsidies, yet will only save 3.3 million tonnes of CO₂. This will reduce world temperatures by 0.00001°C in 2100 – the equivalent of postponing global warming by about 30 minutes at the end of the century. Electric cars will be a good idea, once they can compete – which will probably be by 2032. But it is daft to waste billions of...

Dyson is developing an electric car at its headquarters in Wiltshire with help from public money, according to government documents. The company, which makes a range of products that utilise the sort of highly efficient motors needed for an electric car such as vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and bladeless fans, last year refused to rule out rumours it was building one. But on Wednesday, the government appeared to have accidentally disclosed Dyson is working on one, along with other big companies outside of the automotive industry, such as Apple. "The government is funding Dyson to develop a new battery electric...

Elon Musk is a genius and a visionary who is almost single handedly changing the future of mankind through three different industries at once. With that said, it’s not clear if investors can easily benefit from any of that. Tesla, the company most associated with Musk is in a downward stock spiral over the last month which has taken it to new 52 week lows. There are many reasons for that downward spiral including concerns about market valuations and weak oil prices (which make Tesla’s correspondingly less attractive as a substitute versus conventional cars). But for the first time, Tesla...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17xh_VRrnMU Do electric cars really help the environment? President Obama thinks so. So does Leonardo DiCaprio. And many others. The argument goes like this: Regular cars run on gasoline, a fossil fuel that pumps CO2 straight out of the tailpipe and into the atmosphere. Electric cars run on electricity. They don't burn any gasoline at all. No gas; no CO2. In fact, electric cars are often advertised as creating "zero emissions." But do they really? Let's take a closer look. First, there's the energy needed to produce the car. More than a third of the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an...

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama predicted that there would be "a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015." But only 382,176 plug-in electrified vehicles (PEVs) have been sold in the U.S. since 2008, according to Hybridcars.com. That's just 38 percent of Obama's one million vehicle goal. And although auto sales in the U.S. were at an all-time-high last year with 17.47 million sold, electric vehicles actually lost market share, dropping from 3.47 percent of all vehicles sold in the U.S. to 2.87 percent, according to the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA). Americans bought 9.7...

**SNIP** “I deal through the Clinton Foundation. That gets me in touch with the Haitian officials,” Mr. Rodham said, according to a transcript of his testimony. “I hound my brother-in-law, because it’s his fund that we’re going to get our money from. And he can’t do it until the Haitian government does it. “And he keeps telling me, ‘Oh, it’s going to happen tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.’ Well, tomorrow hasn’t come yet.” Mr. Rodham’s Haiti project never did happen. The Clinton Foundation said in a statement that it was not aware of Mr. Rodham’s Haiti project and had no involvement...

Nye recently penned an op-ed for digital culture magazine Aeon, in which he argues that NASCAR should make the switch to electric-powered vehicles. In his mind, NASCAR is a celebration of "old tech," one that reinforces the automotive status quo and hinders progress from a social standpoint. And while the environmental benefits of an industry-wide change are obvious, the former mechanical engineer sees another benefit of the EV switch. "Just think what an electric race would be like," Nye wrote. "It would be faster, and quiet. You could talk to the person next to you. The drivers could probably hear...

Plunging oil prices are set to hit the electric car industry hard, but Tesla vehicles won't be the worst affected, says CEO Elon Musk. "[The] industry as a whole, I think, will definitely suffer from lower oil prices," Musk told CNN's Kristie Lu Stout on Monday. "It just makes economic sense."

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval approved a $335 million incentive package to attract upstart electric carmaker Faraday Future's billion-dollar factory to a hard-hit Las Vegas suburb, even though the company has yet to unveil a concept car or bring a product to market. The move came shortly after the Legislature voted overwhelmingly to support the deal Saturday, after a four-day special session in Carson City. Lawmakers learned last week that Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting was backing the secretive California-based company, which employs some former Tesla Motors executives, and that Faraday plans to bring 4,500 direct jobs to Nevada. ...

He emulates Steve Jobs' fashion sense but loves to brag that his company has already surpassed Apple in areas including design, craftsmanship, hardware and business models. His company -- which is involved in film production, "smart" TVs, video streaming, mobile phones, bicycles and more -- has been called the "Netflix of China." Last year, he put Tesla in his crosshairs. "We will build the best electric cars to solve the problems of air pollution and traffic jams in China," Jia Yueting wrote on his Chinese microblog. Jia, chairman and founder of Leshi Internet Information & Technology Co., also known as...