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While China has been relentlessly pursuing self-reliance when it comes to raw materials -- especially strategic ones such as titanium, tungsten and cobalt, which are used in the defense industry -- the US for the past several decades has been selling off huge chunks of the strategic minerals stockpile to the extent that the National Defense Stockpile is reportedly reaching insolvency. By comparison, China, as of 2020, was the world's third-largest exporter of titanium, while the US was the number one destination for the Chinese titanium exports. It is China's growing influence in Africa, especially through its Belt and Road...

Ford Motor Co.’s hot-selling Mustang Mach-E electric SUV and other plug-in models are being rendered unprofitable by rising raw material costs. “We actually had a positive bottom line profit when we launched the Mach-E, commodity costs have wiped that out,” Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said Wednesday at the Deutsche Bank Global Automotive Conference, referring to 2020, when the vehicle went on sale. “You’re going to see pressure on the bottom line when we launch our EVs, they’re not going to be positive.”

President Biden has tucked another $500 million to fund production of the minerals used to make batteries for electric cars into the Ukraine aid bill passed by Congress. Both Biden and Ukrainian leaders had said that the $40 billion emergency aid package was essential for Ukraine's war against Russia. But tucked into that package was not only military aid but half a billion dollars to be allocated under the Defense Production Act to companies obtaining critical battery minerals like nickel, cobalt, lithium and graphite, Bloomberg first noted. That's in addition to the $750 million the Defense Department (DOD) was authorized...

Cobalt mining is still fraught with danger and unethical practices, and our dependency is only growing. Cobalt is a problem material and it's one that lithium-ion batteries can use a lot of. As EV factory production ramps up for nearly all automakers, EVs have become the main driver of demand for cobalt, surpassing smartphones, which also rely on the metal. Mobile devices have driven demand for cobalt until now because lots of little batteries still need a cathode and anode in each one. A phone battery doesn't need anywhere near as many materials as an electric or hybrid car battery,...

House Republicans have called on Hunter Biden to testify before Congress later this week, according to a letter from a senior House Republican. "House Committee on Oversight and Reform Republicans request the attendance and testimony of Hunter Biden," Ranking Member James Comer said in a letter to House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney. The committee hearing, titled "It’s Electric: Developing the Postal Service Fleet of the Future," is scheduled for Tuesday, April 5.

For more than a decade, Chinese companies have spent billions of dollars buying out U.S. and European miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt belt - the world’s richest source of a mineral that has become critical to the global transition to cleaner energy. Now the Chinese firms are running into trouble after a court ordered one of the largest to temporarily cede control of one of its mines. Just one electric vehicle can require between 10 and 30 pounds of cobalt to build its battery, depending on the manufacturer, though Tesla Inc. and other auto makers are now...

Soaring battery metal costs are leading to a renewed interest in ithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. Manufacturers are looking to cut cobalt use as they are looking to cut costs and improve their ESG profile. Tesla is making the switch to LFP mandatory in all its markets after a positive reception in the U.S. In the vast majority of cases, technological innovation leads to newer, cheaper, and more efficient designs than their predecessors. But every once in a while, technological progress goes into reverse gear when progress turns out to be turbocharged regress. ... During an investor presentation last year,...

UCLA researchers have designed a device that can use solar energy to inexpensively and efficiently create and store energy, which could be used to power electronic devices, and to create hydrogen fuel for eco-friendly cars. The device could make hydrogen cars affordable for many more consumers because it produces hydrogen using nickel, iron and cobalt — elements that are much more abundant and less expensive than the platinum and other precious metals that are currently used to produce hydrogen fuel. “Hydrogen is a great fuel for vehicles: It is the cleanest fuel known, it’s cheap and it puts no pollutants...

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...

he name “cobalt” comes from the German word kobold, which translates as “goblin” or “evil spirit.” When sixteenth-century miners in Saxony discovered the metal, they thought they had stumbled upon silver, yet it was later revealed that the ores were poor in metals that were known at the time. Upon smelting, the ore (where cobalt is twinned with arsenic, resulting in cobalt arsenide) was found to produce poisonous fumes and became known for causing “mischievous effects”1 upon miners’ health. Then, as now, the element had a dubious reputation.2 Although once it was feared for its toxic health effects,3 today the...

Long before the Biden administration came to be, and President Joe Biden pushed green energy credits in his Build Back Better spending plan this year, Hunter Biden helped grease the wheels for a Chinese business to buy up key rare-earth minerals used in batteries for electric vehicles. The New York Times reported Saturday that Hunter Biden was part owner in an investment firm that was involved in a Chinese conglomerate's $3.8 billion purchase of one of the world's largest cobalt deposits in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Biden's spending package passed the House on Friday night and it plans to...

Hunter Biden’s investment firm helped broker a 2016 deal that gave a Chinese state-backed company control of a massive African mine rich in cobalt — a mineral essential for the production of electric car batteries. The deal, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon during the 2020 presidential campaign, was spotlighted by the New York Times Saturday as Congress inches closer to approving President Biden’s $2 trillion social spending plan, which earmarks billions of dollars to promote electric vehicles. In 2016, an investment firm founded by Hunter Biden with several Chinese partners was cut into a complex $3.8 billion transaction...

An investment firm that counts Hunter Biden among its founders helped a Chinese company purchase one of the world’s most lucrative cobalt mines from an American company, according to a report by The New York Times. Biden established the firm Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) Equity Investment Fund Management Company with two other Americans and some Chinese partners in 2013. The American members controlled 30 percent of the Shanghai-based operation and served on the board. The company notably completed a deal in 2016 that saw a Congo cobalt and copper mine transfer from American company Freeport-McMoRan to Chinese outfit China Molybdenum...

Saddam's Shadow Africa Energy & Mining June 18, 1997 Copyright 1997 Indigo Publications Africa Energy & Mining June 18, 1997 SECTION: MINING; DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO; N. 207 LENGTH: 787 words HEADLINE: Saddam's Shadow BODY: It's not only diamonds and base metals that interest big mining companies and the latter are not alone in being interested in Katanga. In the delegation that the United States sent to Kinshasa on June 2 under its ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, the state department's African affairs department was represented by Marc Baas, director for Central Africa. (Susan Rice, director for African...

The president’s son was part owner of a venture involved in the $3.8 billion purchase by a Chinese conglomerate of one of the world’s largest cobalt deposits. The metal is a key ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles. An investment firm where Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was a founding board member helped facilitate a Chinese company’s purchase from an American company of one of the world’s richest cobalt mines, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr. Biden and two other Americans joined Chinese partners in establishing the firm in 2013, known as BHR and formally named Bohai Harvest...

A Chevrolet electric vehicle owned by Vermont state Rep. Timothy Briglin recently caught fire while charging in the politician’s driveway, according to Vermont State Police. The fire is the most recent to highlight an ongoing concern of automakers and vehicle safety watchdogs as companies release an influx of new EVs.

A fire at a bus depot in Hanover caused millions of euros in damage. According to fire fighters, the fire broke out on Saturday afternoon at the Üstra transport company where electric buses were parked, According to Üstra spokesman Udo Iwannek, the fire caused damage running in the millions. Five e-buses, two hybrids and two combustion engines were destroyed, as were also the building and the charging station. According to the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Hanover’s administration wants to run only e-buses in the city center area by 2023 and is purchasing 50 new vehicles in a...

Why electric cars will take over sooner than you think I know, you probably haven't even driven one yet, let alone seriously contemplated buying one, so the prediction may sound a bit bold, but bear with me. We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in motoring since Henry Ford's first production line started turning back in 1913. And it is likely to happen much more quickly than you imagine. Many industry observers believe we have already passed the tipping point where sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will very rapidly overwhelm petrol and diesel cars. It is certainly what...

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere — in phones, laptops, tablets, cameras and increasingly cars. Demand for lithium-ion batteries has risen sharply in the past five years and is expected to grow from a $44.2 billion market in 2020 to a $94.4 billion market by 2025, mostly due to the boom in electric cars. And a shortage of lithium-ion batteries is looming in the U.S.Former Tesla CTO and Elon Musk's right-hand man, JB Straubel, started Redwood Materials in 2017 to help address the need for more raw materials and to solve the problem of e-waste. The company recycles end-of-life batteries and then...

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) already has some of the most energy-dense electric vehicle batteries available, with the company's Model S able to travel over 400 miles on a single charge. Now it looks like Tesla's vehicles will be able to travel even farther, as a report from Reuters details Panasonic's (OTC: PCRFY) lans for future improvements. Over the next five years, Panasonic is planning to increase energy density by 20%, while also having cobalt-free batteries available in the next two to three years, according to Reuters. The 2170 cells that will be receiving these improvements are currently found in Tesla's...