Metals and Manufacturing – Page 3

All eyes on Tesla as it invests in a troubled nickel mine – by Nick Rodway (Mongabay News – June 22, 2022)

June 22, 2022

https://news.mongabay.com/

GORO, New Caledonia — On the south side of Grand Terre, the largest and principal island of New Caledonia in the south Pacific, mountains rise like a spine out of a vast, turquoise lagoon that forms part of the longest continuous barrier reef in the world.

Although a French overseas territory, New Caledonia—located approximately 1,470 kilometers (900 miles) northeast of Brisbane, Australia—has been home to the Indigenous Kanak people for thousands of years and has a history and culture as rich as its ecology.

American OEM automotive industry’s big problem with lithium … and why Elon Musk is wrong. – by Jack Lifton (Investor Intel – June 7, 2022)

June 8, 2022June 8, 2022

https://investorintel.com/

There isn’t enough lithium mined, and there can never be enough lithium mined and processed into end-user forms economically, to replace the use of fossil-fueled internal combustion engines in the powertrain systems of the current one and one-half billion personal and mass transportation vehicles with electric motors powered by rechargeable lithium-ion type storage batteries.

I think that most of the managers of the global OEM automotive, aerospace, and shipbuilding industries know this, but they are powerless in the face of the demands of politicians who have given in to the greens who are unaware of the limitations of physical natural resource production and processing for non fuel minerals, and who rely on the advice of narrowly and poorly educated and just plain dumb “experts” who have credentials but no experience of business operations, real-world economics or even rudimentary geology.

Musk Back Talking Up Tesla Mining Aspirations – by Glenn Dyer (Share Cafe – May 11, 2022)

May 12, 2022

https://www.sharecafe.com.au/

Elon Musk has again raised the idea that Tesla could buy a miner to speed up the supply of metals essential to the production of electric vehicles around the world. It’s not the first time Musk has made such a comment, but so far he has not done anything about it.

Just how that will speed up production was not explained by Musk who continues to try and assemble a group of investors and bankers to finance his $US44 billion takeover of Twitter. The EV industry is getting concerned that there may not be enough supply of lithium, nickel, copper and other metals to match demand later this decade.

How Canada hopes to buy its way on to the factory floor of the EV revolution – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – May 10, 2022)

May 12, 2022

https://financialpost.com/

Billions in government subsidies are going to keep automakers in the country — and so far it’s working

To the surprise of some, if not many, all five of the global automakers who assemble cars and trucks in Canada have committed to making electric vehicles and hybrids here — or “the cars of the future” in the words of federal industry minister François-Philippe Champagne.

The promises required billions of dollars of enticement from the federal and Ontario governments, but there’s no denying that the decision of Stellantis NV to retool its manufacturing operations in Windsor and Brampton to produce EV’s and hybrids signalled a change in the weather for Canada, a relatively high-cost producer which for decades has been losing auto investments to the southern United States and Mexico.

Threats to Michigan’s auto industry aren’t just coming from the South – by Rick Haglund (Michigan Advance – May 6, 2022)

May 6, 2022May 6, 2022

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Bernard Swiecki, research director at Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive
Research, said Canada has a “secret sauce” of ingredients that make it
particularly well suited for battery investment. Northern Ontario’s
“Ring of Fire” contains virtually all the critical minerals needed
to produce advanced vehicle batteries.

Stunned by Ford Motor Co.’s decision to invest $11.4 billion in electric vehicle assembly and battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky, Michigan in December created a $1 billion fund to lure new electric vehicle operations to Michigan.

An even bigger concern voiced by policymakers and local economic developers was that aggressive southern states were going to steal Michigan’s signature auto industry with huge financial incentives unless the state sweetened its economic development money pot.

Ontario car plants get $1B boost to build electric vehicles – by Rob Ferguson (Toronto Star – May 2, 2022)

May 2, 2022May 2, 2022

https://www.thestar.com/

On the eve of Ontario’s June 2 election call, Chrysler and Dodge factories in Brampton and Windsor are getting a $1-billion infusion from the federal and provincial governments to build the next generation of hybrid and electric vehicles.

The money for the automakers’ parent company, Stellantis, goes toward flexible vehicle assembly lines as the 3,000-employee Brampton plant was preparing to lose production of muscle cars like the V-8 Dodge Challenger to a factory in Illinois, where new electric versions will be made.

Battery-mineral shortage likely to impede Canada’s goals for electric vehicles, industry expert says – by Jonathan Migneault (CBC News Sudbury – April 28, 2022)

April 28, 2022

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Steve LeVine says the world only produces enough nickel to meet half the demand for EVs

It’s unlikely automakers will be able to meet their projections for electric vehicles (EV) as demand for the critical minerals that make up the batteries for them continues to rise, according to a noted business journalist.

Steve LeVine is editor of The Electric, a publication that focuses on electric vehicles and the lithium ion batteries that power them. LeVine, who’s based in Washington, said the world’s mines only produce around half of the critical minerals necessary to meet the auto industry’s EV goals.

Column: Automakers go back to the future to secure battery metals – by Andy Home (Reuters – April 27, 2022)

April 28, 2022

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, April 27 (Reuters) – Henry Ford was right all along, it turns out. After decades of honing just-in-time global supply networks, car companies are going back to Ford’s founding principle of self-sufficiency. Ford’s iconic River Rouge complex in Dearborn Michigan made its own iron and steel, supplied by company freighters from its own iron ore and coking coal mines in Michigan and Kentucky.

World War One had created material shortages and disrupted logistics. Ford’s answer was to take full ownership of the automotive supply chain from mine to product. Auto companies are facing up the same problems today, compounded by the need to go electric, which means creating totally new metallic supply chains.

North has ‘unique opportunity’ to become part of Ontario’s auto sector – by PJ Wilson (Sudbury Star – April 23, 2022)

April 23, 2022

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Provincial program strives to connect region’s mining and mineral expertise with southern Ontario’s manufacturing facilities

Northern Ontario is set to become part of the Ontario auto sector for the first time in 120 years.

The region, covering northeastern and northwestern Ontario, has been combined into the Northern Ontario Regional Technology Development Site, connecting the North’s mining and mineral expertise with southern Ontario’s manufacturing facilities.

GM and Ford Join Tesla in Race to Secure EV Battery Material Supplies – by Al Root (Barrons – April 13, 2022)

April 19, 2022

https://www.barrons.com/

Auto makers are trying to secure supplies of critical materials for meeting their electric-vehicle goals, particularly as prices rise . Ford Motor, General Motors, and Tesla have all made some recent strategic moves to shore up materials to produce EV batteries. On Tuesday, General Motors (ticker: GM) signed a cobalt supply deal with global mining giant Glencore (GLEN.London).

Cobalt is used along with metals such as lithium, nickel, and iron in rechargeable EV batteries. Cobalt gets more attention than other EV materials because most of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has a reputation for poor mining practices and a weak human rights record. The cobalt GM is buying from Glencore , however, will be sourced from Australia.

‘Here for the long term’: Feds, Ontario announce more than $500 million for GM – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – April 5, 2022)

April 5, 2022

https://financialpost.com/

The federal government and the province of Ontario on Monday announced they would each contribute $259 million to General Motors Co. as it moves to revitalize its auto manufacturing operations in Canada.

GM said it is investing more than $2 billion in its operations and the federal and provincial money will support its assembly plant in Ingersoll, in southwest Ontario, where later this year it will start producing electric commercial vans, known as the BrightDrop.

Ontario’s auto industry getting $500M boost from governments to build electric vehicles, pickups – by Rob Ferguson (Toronto Star – April 5, 2022)

April 5, 2022

https://www.thestar.com/

Ontario’s auto industry is getting another boost as governments pour $500 million into helping General Motors set up Canada’s first full-scale electric vehicle production in Ingersoll and a third shift making pickup trucks in Oshawa.

The extra work for Oshawa will bring the total number of jobs at the plant to 2,600 with 600 new hires. There is no firm commitment to build electric vehicles there yet, although it will be the only GM factory in North America with the capacity to build both light- and heavy-duty pickups.

Carmakers dream of clean, green, mean electric machines – by Nick Carey and Barbara Lewis (Reuters – April 4, 2022)

April 4, 2022

https://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON, England, April 4 (Reuters) – An electric car is a clean car, right? If only it were so simple. From motor magnets with toxic histories to batteries made using copious fossil-fuel power, many challenges face carmakers seeking to purge dirtier materials from their supply chains to satisfy regulators and investors.

These obstacles represent opportunities for a growing group of companies in the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem that bet they can capitalise on that demand. They include Advanced Electric Machines (AEM) in northern England, which is working with Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) luxury brand Bentley and others in the auto industry to develop recyclable electric motors free of rare earth metals, which are often produced using polluting chemicals.

US looks to increase metals imports for EV batteries – by Saul Elbein (The Hill – March 29, 2022)

March 30, 2022

https://thehill.com/

The United States will likely need to massively increase its reliance on imports of foreign metals if it is to meet the Biden administration’s goal of moving the country to mainly electric vehicles.

U.S. production of the key metals needed to make EV batteries is already only a small percentage of national demand, so increasing sales of electric vehicles to 50 percent of all new car sales by 2030 will require replacing one set of trading relationships — ones built on oil — for another.

Tesla inks secret multi-year nickel supply deal with Vale – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – March 30, 2022)

March 30, 2022

https://www.mining.com/

Electric vehicle giant Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is said to have secured a multi-year deal with Vale (NYSE: VALE) for the supply of nickel, one of the key ingredients in the batteries that power EVs.

The yet to be disclosed agreement, reported by Bloomberg News, will see the Brazilian miner supply nickel produced in Canada to the EV maker, which has spent the past year signing pacts with several producers of battery metals.