The Electric-Vehicle Push Empowers China

But rushing to replace gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles would hand the keys to the American transportation sector to China, given Beijing’s near-monopoly on rare-earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium, which are used in the high-output motors of most electric vehicles.

... manager at a state-owned rare-earth enterprise based in Ganzhou: “The new company will enforce stricter rules on the production quantity as well as the export volume of rare earths, which may also drive up prices.”

In May, the International Energy Agency reported that an electric-vehicle motor requires “upwards of 1 kilogram,” or more than 2 pounds, of rare-earth elements. The same report found that China controls about 85% of the global supply of those elements and that the “geographical concentration of production” of critical minerals—including rare earths, lithium, copper and cobalt—“is unlikely to change in the near term.”

According to the IEA, offshore wind turbines require as much as 500 pounds of rare earths per megawatt of installed capacity, including some 400 pounds of neodymium. Those are big numbers considering that the Biden administration wants to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind...

By forcing electric vehicles into the market, the U.S. will trade reliance on domestically produced gasoline and diesel fuel for reliance on Chinese neodymium, terbium and dysprosium. What a lousy trade.

I wonder what the actual real world energy costs are today for electric vehicles compared with combustion engine vehicles at the user level.

If we figure out all of the costs, can we then find a way to compare the fuels and vehicles more equally for average daily drivers to understand?

It takes energy to create and make available the Y amount of energy we then we use to move our vehicle Z from point A to point B.

For example, how much does it cost to produce and then make available the gasoline required to do that Y amount of energy required? Or the diesel fuel required?

How do those costs compare to costs of the various fuels used to produce and store the electrical energy needed to do that same work in an EV, along with the costs of the batteries that store it? To me, it’s always been about the batteries.

When you add all of today’s costs and losses together, how do electrically powered and combustion powered vehicle Zs compare?

Battery life and replacement cost accounting over time with EVs adds some clarity to these comparisons.

Otoh, new discoveries and potential future battery tech could change everything, along with the world that depends on energy.

But, are we there yet now with EVs or is combustion power still more cost effective?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.