Category: Battery (Page 5 of 6)
Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo » “I think lithium ion tech will continue for a long time”
Renault will seek to keep electric car development and retail costs down by continuing to use lithium ion batteries, while other marques rush to develop more efficient solid-state technology.
Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo told Autocar that “lithium ion batteries are here to stay. It’s not a disruptive technology, it’s a progressive technology, and there is so much production cost invested in it already.”
Speaking at the first media drive of the all-electric Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric, de Meo wasn’t dismissive of future battery technology such as solid state, saying: “Of course, if you can use solid state in a Formula 1 car or a rocket, then great, but from a business point of view, I think lithium ion tech will continue for a long time.”
Welcome Tesla look forward to official launch. You are a great addition the “future car” cluster of companies in @cityofmarkham pic.twitter.com/9ZRU2lWyEO
— Mayor Frank Scarpitti (@frankscarpitti) November 4, 2021
City official Bryan Frois told Reuters the Markham facility opened this summer, marking an expansion of another site in neighboring Richmond Hill.
Tesla did not immediately comment on the mayor’s tweet. Last year, Tesla senior vice president Andrew Baglino said at the Battery Day event that its “vertical integration” with Hibar and others would allow them to build batteries faster and scale up production of its 4680 battery cells.
Baglino said last month that Tesla will start delivering its first vehicles with 4680 batteries early next year, but added that “this is a new architecture and unknown unknowns may exist still.”
Source » Wired
In an ideal world, each of those lithium-ion batteries stacked in the Oklahoma warehouse would be reused and recycled, ad infinitum, to create the lithium-ion batteries of 10, 25, even 50 years from now—with little new material required. Experts call this a “circular economy.” To make it work, recyclers are racing to come up with an efficient and planet-friendly way to reduce a used battery to its most valuable parts and then remake them into something new. Entrants include Redwood Materials, a Nevada firm led by former Tesla executives; Europe’s Northvolt; and Toronto-based Li-Cycle. Others plan to squeeze every possible electron from a battery before it’s recycled by offering second or third uses after it comes out of a car.
In theory, according to research done in the lab of Alissa Kendall, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, recycled materials could supply more than half of the cobalt, lithium, and nickel in new batteries by 2040, even as EVs get more popular. The emerging EV industry needs a smart end-of-life process for batteries, alongside widespread charging stations, trained auto technicians, and a fortified power grid. It’s essential infrastructure, key to making our electrified future as green as possible. “We have to control these end-of-life batteries,” says Kendall. “It shouldn’t be a horror stream.”
One thing appears certain: The current way of dealing with cars past their prime won’t cut it. Cars are typically globe-trotters; the average vehicle may have three to four owners and cross international borders in its lifetime. When it finally dies, it falls into a globe-spanning network of auctioneers, dismantlers, and scrap yards that try to dispose of cars as profitably as possible. “These vehicles go to auction and anybody can grab them,” Kendall says. “That’s where the Wild West is.”
On Friday, Stellantis and South Korea‘s Samsung SDI have signed an deal to produce electric vehicle battery cells and modules in the United States.
Earlier this week, the forth largest automaker signed a similar agreement with South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution to produce battery cells and modules for North America.
The batteries produced under these agreements will supply Stellantis’ Canadian, Mexican, and American assembly plants for installation in hybrid and fully electric vehicles.
Stellantis has said it wants to secure more than 130 GWh of global battery capacity by 2025 and more than 260 GWh by 2030.
Stellantis earlier this year announced it would invest more than 30 billion euros through 2025 on electrifying its vehicle line-up. It has set a goal that its electric vehicles will account for more than 40 percent of its U.S.A. sales by 2030.
US government proposals to create new electric vehicle tax credits for American-built vehicles could harm the Canadian auto industry and fall foul of trade agreements.
David Shepardson and David Ljunggren, Reuters »
In the letter dated Oct. 22, Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng told U.S. lawmakers and the Biden administration that the credits, if approved, “would have a major adverse impact on the future of EV and automotive production in Canada.”
She said this would raise the risk of severe economic harm and tens of thousands of job losses in one of Canada’s largest manufacturing sectors, adding that U.S. companies and workers would not be immune from the fallout. The auto industry in both nations is highly integrated.
Ng said the proposed credits were inconsistent with U.S. obligations under the USMCA and the World Trade Organization.
Elsewhere » The Detroit News
The electric vehicle industry is working to lessen the negative impact of everything from mining to recycling towards developing more sustainable batteries.
The European Union last December made a series of proposals that cover manufacturing, design, labeling, collection and recycling throughout every battery’s life cycle.
Beginning on July 1, 2024, only rechargeable industrial and electric vehicle batteries for which carbon footprint declarations have been established will be allowed to go to market in the EU.
Parts makers are also having to find ways to cope with tightening environmental regulations.
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Electric vehicles are considered crucial if humanity is to reduce the amount of pollution it emits, but producing lithium-ion batteries for EVs generates carbon emissions. Mining lithium, cobalt and other raw materials is energy-intensive and environmentally destructive. The mining of cobalt is particularly problematic as it is often tied to child labor and human rights abuses.
Recycling and reusing EV batteries is expected to hasten the shift to electric vehicles.