News: Passenger Cars, Minivans, and SUVs

2022-12-14

Are There Enough Materials To Produce Needed EVs?

The transition from ICE to electric vehicles (EVs) is necessary to decrease climate-changing emissions. As deployment increases, so will the demand for EV battery materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. These materials are primarily supplied through two sources: 1) newly mined or 2) recovered by recycling batteries.

Research shows there are enough explored or prospective reserves to electrify the global transportation sector using current technology if a high amount of battery recycling occurs. In this scenario, global demand for EVs in 2100 will amount to about 55% of cobalt reserves and 50% of lithium reserves. If recycling doesn’t ramp up, a shortage of lithium, nickel, or cobalt is likely, and it is estimated that demand would exceed what is economically accessible to extract.

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2022-11-16

World Needs To Mine 25X More Lithium

Guy Youngs
Guy Youngs

The de-carbonization of the transport industry is heavily dependent on the scaling up of electric vehicle production rapidly and massively, and this rests on scaling up battery mineral mining and refining. This means Lithium.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence counts 40 lithium mines that have been in operation and producing lithium in 2022. But, by 2050, the company sees a need for 234 more lithium mines if there’s no battery recycling underway (which, of course, is completely unrealistic but is a place to start from for such an analysis).

“The long term path for lithium is set, yet the supply chain scaling challenge has just begun,” said Simon Moores, chief executive of Benchmark. “What this data shows is that we are at just the beginning of a generational challenge, not one that’s going to be solved in the 2020s.”

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US Increases EV Battery Recycling Capacity

A new EV battery recycling plant in Alabama from Li-Cycle has just come online. It can process up to 10,000 tons of battery waste per year, enough for about 20,000 EVs per year, and helps the US move toward a zero-emission economy.

Li-Cycle’s processing method is specifically designed as a two-part system recycling battery manufacturing scrap and turns end-of-life batteries into a black mass. The black mass is then processed and used to generate battery minerals such as nickel sulfate, lithium carbonate, and cobalt sulfate, three of the most critical factors for EV batteries. According to the battery recycling company, Li-Cycle believes its new method will enable up to a 95% efficiency rate compared to the industry average of 50%.

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Penn State Offers Smaller, Faster Charging Batteries

Researchers at Penn State say they have found a way to make batteries for electric cars that can be smaller and faster charging.

“The need for smaller, faster-charging batteries is greater than ever,” said Chao-Yang Wang, the lead author of the research study that was published in the October 12 issue of the journal Nature. “Our fast-charging technology works for most energy dense batteries and will open a new possibility to downsize electric vehicle batteries from 150 to 50 kWh without causing drivers to feel range anxiety,” said Wang.

Batteries operate most efficiently when they are hot, but not too hot. Keeping batteries consistently at just the right temperature has been a major challenge for battery engineers. Historically, they have relied on external, bulky heating and cooling systems to regulate battery temperature, but they respond slowly and waste a lot of energy. The team decided to regulate the temperature from inside the battery. The researchers developed a new battery structure that adds an ultrathin nickel foil as the fourth component besides the anode, electrolyte, and cathode. The nickel foil self-regulates the battery’s temperature and reactivity which allows for 10 minute fast charging on just about any EV battery.

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2022-11-15

Cheering Festive Season for Auto Industry

INDIA REPORT

This year’s festive season fired up vehicle registrations but failed to match 2019 sales numbers. Vehicle sales, which peak during the festive season in India, account for about 40% of annual volume. Sales in the just-concluded season this year were better than in the past two COVID years but were far below the sales level of 2019.

“Auto Retail for October 2022 saw an overall growth of 48%,” said Manish Raj Singhania, president of FADA. With most of the month under the festive period, the sentiments were extremely positive across all categories of dealership outlets.”

Source: Economic Times     Read The Article

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New Vehicle Sales Increase 33% in September

SOUTHEAST ASIA: 6 MAJOR COUNTRIES REPORT

New vehicle sales in the six major Southeast Asian countries totaled 317,765 units in September, up 33% from the same month last year. The figures were compiled from new vehicle sales statistics released by automobile industry associations and other organizations in each country. This is the 12th consecutive month that sales have exceeded those of the same month last year; the economic recovery from COVID-19 continues, with sales up 8% compared to September 2019, even before the spread of the infection.

Indonesia, the largest new vehicle market in the region, saw a 19% y/y increase to 99,986 units. This was the highest single-month sales volume in 2022. The tax exemption for some models ended at the end of September, and there appears to have been a rush demand for new vehicles.

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Semiconductor Development Companies Set Up

FAR EAST: JAPAN REPORT
Akihiro Komuro
Akihiro Komuro

The full details of the government’s goal of a next-generation semiconductor development system have been revealed. Led by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and in cooperation with the private sector and overseas countries such as the United States, a new company will be established to mass produce next-generation semiconductors, and a new R&D center will be launched. This is the first time that a comprehensive system for research and mass production of advanced semiconductors has been established.

The new structure has two pillars. The “LSTC (Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center)” will be established by the end of this year as a research and development center for next-generation semiconductors. The University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tohoku University, RIKEN, and others will participate in the LSTC, which aims to be an open R&D platform for both domestic and international use so that the results of research can be put to practical use. The company is also considering collaboration with the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), which is scheduled to be established in the United States.

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2022-10-21

Hyundai Motor and KT Invest in Autonomous Driving

FAR EAST: SOUTH KOREA REPORT

The Hyundai Motor Group and telecommunications giant KT have formed a capital and business alliance. The two companies will invest about 750 billion won in each other by exchanging their shares.

The two companies will jointly develop communication-related technologies to produce autonomous driving equipment. In addition to automobiles, Hyundai Motor is expanding its business in the fields of robotics and urban air transportation (UAM, or flying cabs), and has decided that partnering with KT will enable it to accelerate research and development in fields other than automobiles.

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Functional Miniature Hydrogen Fuel Cell Powers RC Truck

Hydrogen fuel cells are still a bit mysterious and likely are unattainable in the near future, but you can actually buy them right now, whether in vehicles or as parts. To demonstrate how practical they are, Alfonso Delgado Ollero built a miniature hydrogen fuel cell to power an RC truck.

The practical concerns of producing the hydrogen in the first place and the energy density being relatively low are relevant when talking about the future of the automotive industry, but according to Alfonso Delgado Ollero, they shouldn’t prevent makers from experimenting with hydrogen fuel cells.

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2022-09-29

Battery Electric Power Forecasts

Guy Youngs
Guy Youngs

With the exception of 2022 (+7.6%), Battery Electric as a power source is expected to grow between 10% and 17% throughout the forecast period, while ICE growth rates start the period at -2.3% and then grow at less than 1% for 2023 to 2025.

Battery Electric is expected to grow from 12.8% of the market in 2022 to 21.2% by 2027, while during the same period ICEs are expected to decline from 85% of the market to 75%.   PSR

Guy Youngs is Forecast & Adoption Lead Analyst at Power Systems Research