EU-Ukraine relations,Raw materials,Batteries,Cooperation,

The European Union and Ukraine have launched a strategic partnership on raw materials and batteries, EU Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said on February 11.

“The European Union has always stood side-by-side with Ukraine as its closest friend,” said the VP for Inter-institutional Relations and Foresight. “Our support and cooperation has been delivering tangible results. I’m therefore trully excited to expand this positive agenda to new areas,” said Sefcovic, who is also coordinating the EU Battery Alliance.

He stressed that the EU-Ukraine strategic partnership on critical raw materials and batteries a win-win as it promotes EU’s green and digital transition while helping Ukraine approximate its policies with the European Green Deal. “This is all the more important as we need to sustainability revive our economies in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. As part of this partnership, the EU stands ready to scale up its technical assistances program with the Ukrainian government by including raw materials and topping up its budget with an additional 800,000 euros,” Sefcovic said. “In this context, I welcome that the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine has become a new member of our two strategic industrial alliances on raw materials and batteries. I’m also looking forward to a high-level conference on strategic EU-Ukrainian cooperation on raw materials to be held later this year,” he said.

Read more at: EU-Ukraine launch strategic partnership on raw materials and batteries | New Europe

Car Industry Alternative Energy: Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced

Batteries capable of fully charging in five minutes have been produced in a factory for the first time, marking a significant step towards electric cars becoming as fast to charge as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles.

Electric vehicles are a vital part of action to tackle the climate crisis but running out of charge during a journey is a worry for drivers. The new lithium-ion batteries were developed by the Israeli company StoreDot and manufactured by Eve Energy in China on standard production lines.

Read more at: Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced | Electric, hybrid and low-emission cars | The Guardian

Electric Cars: Tesla’s value drops $50 billion as cheaper batteries three years away

Investors slashed $50 billion from Tesla Inc’s market value on Tuesday (22 September) despite CEO Elon Musk’s promise to cut electric vehicle costs so radically that a $25,000 car that drives itself will be possible, but not for at least three years.

Nothing Musk discussed about batteries is a done deal,” said Roth Capital Partners analyst Craig Irwin. “There was nothing tangible.”

Tesla’s new larger cylindrical cells will provide five times more energy, six times more power and far greater driving range, Musk said, adding that full production is about three years away.

To help reduce cost, Musk said Tesla planned to recycle battery cells at its Nevada “gigafactory,” while reducing cobalt – one of the most expensive battery materials – to virtually zero. It also plans to manufacture its own battery cells at several highly automated factories around the world.

Shares in two battery suppliers to Tesla, South Korea’s LG Chem and Japan’s Panasonic Corp, fell after the announcement.

Increasing the EU’s domestic supply of critical raw materials and cutting external dependencies got top billing in a new European Commission strategy on Thursday (3 September), as the bloc started to get serious about its Green Deal and digital agenda.

Tesla will produce the new battery cells initially on a new assembly line near its vehicle plant in Fremont, California, with planned output reaching 10 gigawatt-hours a year by the end of 2021. Tesla and partner Panasonic Corp now have production capacity of around 35 gWh at the Nevada battery “gigafactory”.

Tesla aims to rapidly ramp up battery production over the next years, to 3 terawatt-hours a year, or 3,000 gigawatt-hours – roughly 85 times greater than the capacity of the Nevada plant. Musk said Tesla could supply batteries to other companies.

As automakers shift from horsepower to kilowatts to comply with stricter environmental regulations, investors are looking for evidence that Tesla can increase its lead in electrification technology over legacy automakers who generate most of their sales and profits from combustion-engine vehicles.

While average electric vehicle prices have decreased in recent years thanks to changes in battery composition, they are still more expensive than conventional cars, with the battery estimated to make up a quarter to a third of an electric vehicle’s cost.

Some researchers estimate that price parity, or the point at which electric vehicles are equal in value to internal combustion cars, is reached when battery packs cost $100 per kilowatt hour (kWh).

Tesla’s battery packs cost $156 per kWh in 2019, according to electric vehicle consulting firm Cairn Energy Research Advisors. 

 

Read more at:  Tesla’s value drops $50 billion as cheaper batteries three years away – EURACTIV.com

Popular Mechanics: Battery Supplier Problems For Hybrids and EVs - Are There Enough Electric Batteries? - by Eric Sorfge

For the complete report from Popular Mechanics click on this link

Battery Supplier Problems For Hybrids and EVs - Are There Enough Electric Batteries? - by Erik Sorfge

This past August, then-candidate Barack Obama proposed a 10-year, $150 billion energy plan that included an ambitious deadline: one million plug-in hybrids on the road in the United States by 2015. Of course, that was before gas prices plummeted to historic lows, before the mortgage implosion in September, and before the Detroit Three appeared before Congress, hat in hand. But even if President-elect Obama can overcome a raft of financial obstacles, the million plug-in plan or any other attempt to dramatically increase the nation’s fleet of hybrids, plug-ins and all-electric vehicles could face an unexpected roadblock—too much political will, and not enough batteries. Last week Brian Wynne, the president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA), told the Wall Street Journal that there are no companies in the United States currently producing the kind of batteries used in hybrids or electric vehicles. That appears to be true—for a few weeks, at least.

New York City–based Ener1, one of four domestic players in the automotive-battery market, plans to begin volume production of lithium-ion battery packs next month, as part of a deal with Norwegian electric vehicle (EV) maker Think. Having recently acquired a Korean battery manufacturer, Ener1 now claims to have a total production capacity of 450,000 hybrid-electric packs per year, or 45,000 EV packs (which require more cells per pack). The company plans to reach that capacity by 2011. And while not every U.S. battery maker is so forthcoming with its production numbers, even if all four major companies reached similar capacities, a battery crunch seems inevitable.