Biden’s budget puts Canada’s auto sector in peril – by Brian Lilley (Sudbury Star – October 18, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Joe Biden’s pledge to support all things made in America could end up costing thousands of Canadian jobs in the auto industry. Budget legislation moving through the American Congress contains tax breaks for electric cars that could pretty much rule out future investments by automakers in Canada and cost tens of thousands of jobs.

The legislation would increase the incentive for buying an electric vehicle to $12,500 but only if the vehicle, and the battery that is in the vehicle, are both made in the United States.

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Tesla inks multi-year nickel supply deal with Prony Resources – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – October 13, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

Electric vehicle giant Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has inked a multi-year nickel supply deal with New Caledonia’s Prony Resources, which guarantees the US carmaker about 42,000 tonnes of the metal needed to produce the batteries that power its EVs.

Prony, which bought the loss-making nickel and cobalt operations in the French territory from Vale (NYSE: VALE) earlier this year, said it’s targeting production of 44,000 tonnes of nickel by 2024. That’s about double the expected 2021 output.

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GM sets to double revenue, lead U.S. in electric vehicle sales (CTV News – October 6, 2021)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

Associated Press – General Motors plans to cash in as the world switches from combustion engines to battery power, promising to double its annual revenue by 2030 with an array of new electric vehicles, profitable gas-powered cars and trucks, and services such as an electronic driving system that can handle most tasks on the road.

In announcements Wednesday ahead of a two-day investor event in suburban Detroit, the company also pledged to unseat Tesla and become the electric vehicle market share leader in U.S., although no time frame was given.

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Why Intel and TSMC are building water-dependent chip factories in one of the driest U.S. states – by Sam Shead (CNBC.com – June 4, 2021)

https://www.cnbc.com/

The biggest semiconductor manufacturers in the world are quickly trying to build new factories as the global chip crisis continues to wreak havoc on a plethora of industries.

U.S. semiconductor giant Intel announced in March that it plans to spend $20 billion on two new chip plants in Arizona. Separately, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) said it was going to build a $12 billion factory in Arizona, and chief executive C.C. Wei said Wednesday that construction had already begun.

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Another major EV-battery play that will face rather steep odds – by Anjani Trivedi (Livemint.com – September 29, 2021)

https://www.livemint.com/

Anjani Trivedi is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies in Asia.

There it is again: Another automaker makes a big announcement about its electrification plans with a battery manufacturer. Going by previous proclamations, that’s not just ambitious but far-fetched.

Ford Motor Company and SK Innovation Company announced that they are partnering to spend $11.4 billion on three electric-car battery plants across the United States, making it the most sizable investment in the automaker’s 118-year-history.

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Ford making its biggest single manufacturing investment ever to build electric vehicle factories – by Peter Valdes-Dapena (CNN Business – September 28, 2021)

https://www.cnn.com/

(CNN)Ford Motor Co. and South Korea-based energy company SK Innovations are investing $11.4 billion to build two new enormous manufacturing campuses for electric vehicles, creating more than 10,000 new jobs and representing Ford’s largest-ever single manufacturing investment in the company’s 118-year history.

Ford’s share of the investment will be $7 billion, Ford executives said. Ford previously announced it will spend $30 billion by 2025 on its shift to building more electric vehicles and that it expects 40% of its sales, worldwide, to be fully electric vehicles by 2030.

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The Energy Future Needs Cleaner Batteries – by Drake Bennett (Bloomberg News – September 23, 2021)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Late in August, at a precisely specified point in the low Arctic, a geologist named Dave Freedman stood in a raw wind and a limitless expanse of tundra and began to thwack with a sledgehammer at a rock outcrop jutting up from the soil.

Freedman, 29, works for a company called KoBold Metals, and the process that had brought him to this pair of GPS coordinates in Quebec’s far north was complex. But the rock had had its own journey.

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For Auto Makers, the Chip Famine Will Persist – by Daniel Yergin and Matteo Fini (Wall Street Journal – September 22, 2021)

https://www.wsj.com/

The chip famine is starving the global auto industry and putting car buyers on a strict diet. So far this year, seven million cars that were supposed to be produced haven’t been, according to IHS Markit data.

Auto companies are shutting down production lines for weeks at a time and furloughing employees as a result of the chip shortage. Toyota has slashed its production 40% in September.

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Stellantis CEO says Canada could be the location of its new electric-vehicle battery plant – by Eric Atkins (Globe and Mail – July 22, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The head of Stellantis says Canada could be the location of its new electric-vehicle battery plant, part of the global automaker’s $44.5-billion investment in low-emission cars.

Stellantis, formed in January by the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group of France, will build two battery plants in North America and three in Europe – Germany, France and possibly Italy.

Carlos Tavares, Stellantis’s chief executive officer, said the locations of the North American plants have not been selected, and are under discussion with partners and government officials.

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EV Metal Index quadruples year-on-year as lithium, nickel prices rally – by Editor (Mining.com – July 19, 2021)

https://www.mining.com/

MINING.COM’s EV Metal Index quadrupled from May 2020 and added nearly 18% in value from the previous month, racking up the third best monthly total on record.

The EV Metal Index, which tracks the value of battery metals in newly registered passenger EVs (including hybrids) around the world, came in at $477 million in April, an increase of 326% over the same month last year and bringing the year-to-date total to $2.03 billion.

Total battery capacity of EVs sold during the month tripled year on year to 19.2 GWh, according to Adamas Intelligence, which tracks demand for EV batteries by chemistry, cell supplier and capacity in over 100 countries.

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China frictions steer electric automakers away from rare earth magnets – by Eric Onstad (Yahoo Finance/Reuters – July 19, 2021)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – As tensions mount between China and the United States, automakers in the West are trying to reduce their reliance on a key driver of the electric vehicle revolution – permanent magnets, sometimes smaller than a pack of cards, that power electric engines. Most are made of rare earth metals from China.

The metals in the magnets are actually abundant, but can be dirty and difficult to produce. China has grown to dominate production, and with demand for the magnets on the rise for all forms of renewable energy, analysts say a genuine shortage may lie ahead.

Some auto firms have been looking to replace rare earths for years. Now manufacturers amounting to nearly half global sales say they are limiting their use, a Reuters analysis found.

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GM Will Suck Lithium From the Salton Sea to Make Batteries – by Mark Vaughn (Autoweek – July 15, 2021)

https://www.autoweek.com/

Critics of electric cars would like you to believe that all of the mining for all of the minerals needed in EVs is performed by environmentally destructive means. This may not be an entirely accurate representation of the actual mining and extraction process that gets the lithium necessary for your Li-Ion battery. And the processes are getting cleaner all the time.

Lithium is needed to make batteries for electric cars. Right now, most lithium comes from Australia—51,000 tons of it in 2019. Second-highest producer of lithium is Chile with 16,000 tons.

The list drops off precipitously from there. But the world is going to need a lot more very soon, especially carmakers such as GM, which, along with many if not most of the world’s carmakers has pledged to go all-EV very soon, GM by 2035.

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How Canada can get back some of its former glory as a maker of things the world wants to buy – by Kevin Carmichael (Financial Post – July 13, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Anthony Caputo’s order book at Can Art Aluminum Extrusion LP is a directory of the world’s most important automobile companies, all of them investing in EVs.

Automotive supply chains are being overhauled to build electric vehicles, and his Brampton, Ont.-based company will be an important node when they solidify since it has emerged as a leading supplier of one of the most important parts: the aluminum cases that protect the batteries, a tricky bit of engineering.

The cases must be both lightweight to help maximize the distance vehicles can travel between charges, and durable enough to keep the battery from exploding in a collision.

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OPINION: The government’s 2035 electric vehicle mandate is delusional – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – July 3, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Whether or not you want one, can afford one or think they will do essentially nothing to stop global warming, electric vehicles are coming to Canada en masse. This week, the Canadian government set 2035 as the “mandatory target” for the sale of zero-emission SUVs and light-duty trucks.

That means the sale of gasoline and diesel cars has to stop by then. Transport Minister Omar Alghabra called the target “a must.” The previous target was 2040.

It is a highly aspirational plan that verges on the delusional, even if it earns Canada – a perennial laggard on the emission-reduction front – a few points at climate conferences. Herewith, a few reasons why the plan may be unworkable, unfair or less green than advertised.

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Liberals say by 2035 all new cars, light-duty trucks sold in Canada will be electric – by Stephanie Taylor (Financial Post – June 30, 2021)

https://financialpost.com/

Government has already poured at least $300 million into a rebate program that offers consumers a break when they buy electric cars

OTTAWA — The Liberal government is speeding up its goal for when it wants to see all light-duty vehicles sold in Canada to be electric. Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced Tuesday that by 2035 all new cars and light-duty trucks sold in the country will be zero-emission vehicles.

Until now the government had set 2040 as the target for when it wants to see all passenger vehicles sold to be powered by this technology.

Alghabra cited a recent report from the International Energy Agency that says by 2035 nearly all new light-duty vehicle sales would have to be electric to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century.

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