[sgiitk]

@sameer1234; Yes, that will be a game changer. Much better that zero tax benefits which I guess was due to all sorts of animals being called hybrids. Recently while in Srilanka we found a decent sprinkling of Hybrids, and also a lot of Toyota Prius cars. Obviously being a small country they do not have the long distance commute issues that we have.

[srishiva]

In Karnataka the policy is in effect from Nov 2017. It proposes tax exemptions from April 2016 ! (not sure about which taxes but it does mention the act which levies the tax)
Most of the policy items are for industries in battery, vehicle and other areas to foster a industrial environment for supporting e-mobility

[volkman10]

Toyota’s new magnet for electric motors can slash use of rare earth element by 50% .

Toyota Motor Corporation has developed the world's first neodymium-reduced, heat-resistant magnet. Neodymium magnets are used in various types of motors such as the high-output motors found in electrified vehicles, use of which is expected to increase rapidly in the future. The new magnet uses significantly less neodymium, a rare-earth element, and can be used in high-temperature conditions.

The newly developed magnet uses no terbium (Tb) or dysprosium (Dy), which are rare earths that are also categorized as critical materials(3) necessary for highly heat-resistant neodymium magnets. A portion of the neodymium has been replaced with lanthanum (La) and cerium (Ce), which are low-cost rare earths, reducing the amount of neodymium used in the magnet.

Toyota expects that the magnets will be put to use in the motors of electric power steering for automobiles and other applications in the first half of the 2020s. Furthermore, the company will undertake development with the aim of practical application in high-performance electrified vehicle drive motors within the next 10 years.

link

[volkman10]

The advent of EV’s – will any country hold ransom being electric future?

For China it is definitely a boon but for the rest of the world remains a Q.

Will China hold the whole 'electric' future at ransom?

If the supply of electric vehicles is to grow as predicted, the demand for strategic materials will increase along with it.

As far as electric vehicles are concerned, broad choke points have been identified as below, though Climate impact is considered but is seen as an improvement over the existing IC vehicles.

1. Climate impact of EV – Environmental performance of EVs is today already better than the one of conventionally fueled vehicles. The life cycle analysis shows that even when powered by thermal plants, the carbon footprint of EVs is lower.

Hence the real two are those of using critical metals and rare earth minerals


2. The supply of cobalt needed to make batteries

3. The supply of rare earth minerals needed to make the magnets in electric motors.

EV batteries are predominantly Lithium-ion batteries, (e.g. NCA, NMC7), which use Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, and Graphite.

Li-ion cells use a cathode (positive electrode), an anode (negative electrode) and electrolyte as conductor. The cathode is mainly composed of Nickel (73%), Cobalt (14%), Lithium (11%), and Aluminium (2%). The anode is usually completely made of graphite.10 The electrolyte consists of Lithium salts (the most common being lithium hexafluorophosphate, LiPF6) in an organic solvent.

Li resources are wide spread and not dominated by a single country, with still un-tapped S A reserves this situation seem to tide over the crisis of availability due to concentration at a single point.

For Cobalt, estimated reserves in the three leading countries (DRC, Australia, Cuba) suggest the adequate reserves available when worldwide goes into EV production. The Risk is 65% of worldwide cobalt production comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The disproportionate weight of the DRC in the worldwide cobalt production, and its political instability, could lead to supply risks if cobalt sourcing is not diversified in the future.

The Graphite used in anodes today comes exclusively from China which also supplies about 80% of the available rare earth minerals. This lack of diversified supply is a concern in the future.

Rare Earth Elements:

Electric motors include a number of rare earth elements (REE), a group of 17 chemical elements which are despite their name not especially scarce resources but are available in only small amounts dispersed on the Earth’s crust.

Most electric vehicles (with the exception of Tesla) use Neodymium Iron Boron permanent magnets (NdFeB), which are essential to produce high-performance electric motors. Such magnets contain Neodymium (Nd), Praseodymium (Pr), and Dysprosium (Dy) Rare Earth Elements.

Expensive neodymium already is the main cost driver in the production of magnets. If electric vehicles will gain popularity as expected, shortages of neodymium could occur as early as 2025.

This is high risk going by the fact that China wields a virtual monopoly on neodymium. Past evidence shows China had enacted a temporary export ban of neodymium, triggering a rare earth crisis.

In nearing conclusion going to EV is a good thing but need to tread with caution considering there is a high risk of concentration of certain elements of producing an EV only in a few countries and hence the need for innovative ways that will contribute to reduce the quantity of critical metals used in EV’s

Future:

The unpleasant specter of a dependency on neodymium and China hastened research at Toyota.

In 2010, the company patented a first step towards the reduction of neodymium content; a second step was patented three years later. The final and most important step was patented last year. With the technology, Toyota can reduce its dependency on the strategic metal by up to 50 percent while maintaining the performance of the magnet.

Going forward, like Toyota all auto manufactures will need to see practical use , perform application assessments in motor vehicles, and continue researching and developing technologies with the aim of low-cost, stable production of Electric Vehicles.


Toyota

Link1

[vamsi.kona]

I believe that Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles will be once again on popular radar as and when the difficulties in EV vehicles become costly. Already Alstom, one of the major players in rail segment, has trialled Fuel Cell trains, which might be completely operational by 2021. There might be a reason Toyota has been sticking to Fuel Cell research. By the time Fuel Cell vehicles gain popularity the problem of efficiently producing Hydrogen would also be solved.

World's first hydrogen-powered passenger train takes to the tracks in Germany


Alstom Website

[volkman10]

Originally Posted by volkman10

The advent of EV’s – will any country hold ransom being electric future?

Hence the real two are those of using critical metals and rare earth minerals


2. The supply of cobalt needed to make batteries

3. The supply of rare earth minerals needed to make the magnets in electric motors.

EV batteries are predominantly Lithium-ion batteries, (e.g. NCA, NMC7), which use Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, and Graphite.

Why Road min took U-turn on Electric Vehicles' policy ? Only now the real challenges are looked upon.


- government feels the segment is nothing but “uncertain”, EVs’ adoption in the country as the road is full of “ifs and buts”.

-Electric vehicles won’t be adopted (by people) unless the cost goes down or unless we have charging infrastructure

-India lacks the requisite resources to give the impetus for mass adoption leaving their future “uncertain”.

-Prices of EVs not going down sharply-battery is not something where the cost will come down sharply.

-Any metal that is extracted from the earth sees a rise in price on the back of increased quantity demanded. Then, how is lithium any different ?

- China, is a country having huge lithium ores yet it doesn’t sell electric vehicles at low costs. There has to be a reason which is “holding up the prices"

adoption of EVs could follow Transport for London model in India.

Link

[volkman10]

China to put onus for recycling batteries on EV manufacturers .

with lithium battery production already up by half in 2017 and the waste set to hit as much as 170,000 tonnes this year, the government is racing to improve its recycling capabilities and stamp out what could become a growing source of pollution.

China’s industry ministry has issued ‘interim’ rules on Monday that hold carmakers responsible for the recovery of new energy vehicle batteries and require them to set up recycling channels and service outlets where old batteries can be collected, stored and transferred to specialist recyclers.

Additionally, the carmakers must also establish a maintenance service network allowing members of the public to repair or exchange their old batteries conveniently, the ministry said. These measures aimed at spurring good practice among consumers, including subsidies or battery repurchase pacts, should also be adopted

Together with battery makers and their sales units, the vehicle manufacturer must also set up a ‘traceability’ system that will enable identification of owners of discarded batteries. The battery makers will also be encouraged to adopt standardised and easily dismantled product designs, which will help automate the recycling process. They must also provide technical training for car makers to store and dismantle old batteries.

Link

[volkman10]

2017 for Europe shows a higher % of Carbon-di-oxide as registrations for diesel cars decline.

-Average CO2 emissions increased by 0.3g/km in 2017, the first rise in Europe in 10 years

-The decline of diesel vehicles was a key factor in the rise in CO2 levels, along with an increase in SUV registrations

-EU CO2 targets of 95g/km could be difficult to achieve, should demand for diesel continue to fall and electric vehicles fail to plug the gap

market share of petrol vehicles grew by 3 percentage points from 47% to 50% between 2016 and 2017.

HYBRID is the way to go and the best solution in transitioning to EV,

Toyota became Europe’s cleanest car brand amongst the top 20 best-selling brands. This can be attributed to increased demand for its hybrid vehicle models, which represented half of all registrations for the brand

[rst89]

Since few discussion are going on any country holding ransom for electric future, I have few observations based on professional experience.

I design and develop Battery Management systems.
There is a cell supplier in China named as CATL. (Contemporary Amperex technology limited). The origins of CATL are a little bit shady but this company is getting huge help from Chinese Government.

As far I know from our system engineers, CATL has invested a lot in research and development and are manufacturing loads of cell modules. Now here comes some part of dodgy regulation that mandates new EV vehicles to be launched in China to use only CATL cells or you get no subsidy from Government. Hence, all OEM are buying cells from CATL for Chinese market.

Consumption of metals for Lithium ion batteries is huge. Just like blood diamonds, metals like cobalt will come under investigation. Washington Post had an excellent article tracing Cobalt which is used in Lithium ion batteries.
Below link is still relevant:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...m-ion-battery/

Apart from that, if you have doubt in Battery management systems, I will try to answer it over here where I have understanding in this topic.

[volkman10]

Volkswagen's 16 EV plants locations by 2022, will shortly launch a new EV model "virtually every month."

The plan, previously dubbed "Roadmap E," is to produce up to 3 million electrified vehicles per year by 2025, with no fewer than 80 electrified models spread throughout its dozen-strong brand lineup, a portfolio that includes VW, Audi, Porsche and Bugatti, among others.

By 2030, the German automaker will offer at least one version of each of the Group's 300 models.






Source: VW

[volkman10]

VW will lean on battery suppliers to power electrification - will not get into battery manufacturing business.

Predicts the renaissance of diesels.

Volkswagen wasn't giving up on either the internal combustion engine or diesel, both of which can be further improved.

diesel engine hasn't been talked to death by then, because the modern diesel is part of the solution, and not part of the problem

This is not one of our core competencies, and others can do it better than we can.

While the 11-brand conglomerate has global plans for 80 new electrified vehicles by 2025, including 50 full electrics, it will stay out of the battery manufacturing business.

Beginning next year, the company's 11 brands would collectively be introducing one new electric vehicle every month.


Link

[SJM1214]

A meaningful photograph.

[volkman10]

A Tesla Model X driver died of his injuries after his vehicle caught on fire in a crash on the highway;

Vehicles do tend to catch fire, but in an EV it is different.

There’s a lot of talk about electric vehicle fires even though there’s no statistic showing that they catch on fire any more frequently than gas-powered cars.

But there’s no doubt that they burn differently due to the battery packs and it is affecting the work of first responders

At one point, 35 firefighters were involved in controlling a Tesla Model S fire.

Link

[sgiitk]

@rst89; One must also vector in the very low running costs (electricity is far cheaper than fossil fuels), and also vector in the far lower maintenance. The main costs may be the battery replacement costs.

[rst89]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

@rst89; One must also vector in the very low running costs (electricity is far cheaper than fossil fuels), and also vector in the far lower maintenance. The main costs may be the battery replacement costs.

Electricity generated from fossil fuels is costly and dirty. This negates the advantages of using EVs if you are causing harm to the environment indirectly. If a country generates most of its energy needs using non renewable resources, using EVs is a win win situation.