The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Sorted by date Results 1 - 20 of 20
The largest-ever investment by an automaker into a battery materials mining company. To strengthen its domestic supply of the materials going into the batteries for its expanding lineup of electric vehicles, General Motors is investing $650 million toward the development of Lithium Americas Corp.'s Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada. Considered to be the largest known lithium deposit in the United States, Thacker Pass hosts 16.1 million metric tons of lithium...
H2 infrastructure - Nikola builds out, Shell pulls back, and passenger cars lag heavy vehicles. Shell's withdrawal from passenger-vehicle hydrogen refueling operations has ignited debates on the developing industry's overall timing and viability. However, automakers and governments are still backing hydrogen fuel cells due to growing concerns about the slow pace and environmental expense of new critical mineral mines needed for lithium-ion batteries currently powering most...
The Salton Sea geothermal reservoir in Southern California could produce up to 3.4 million metric tons of lithium, which is plenty to make batteries for enough electric vehicles to replace all cars currently on U.S. highways, according to a comprehensive analysis carried out by the U.S. Department of Energy. The analysis, funded by the Geothermal Technologies Office and conducted by DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, confirms the region's significant potential to...
Collaborative investment of C$1.2 billion into future battery cathode facility. Coming out of the region that will hold one of the more prominent footholds for battery-related industries, Ford Motor Company announced an investment of C$1.2 billion (US$885,660) to build a battery cathode manufacturing facility in Becancour, Quebec, for future Ford electric vehicles. Becancour is a small town along the shores of the St. Lawrence River about halfway between Montreal and Quebec...
Becancour, a small Quebec town along the shores of the St. Lawrence River about midway between Montreal and Quebec City, is rapidly emerging as an epicenter for producing the advanced materials needed for lithium-ion batteries powering the electric vehicle revolution. This rural Canadian town of around 12,800 people surfaced in the battery space about a year ago when Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. announced plans to build a facility there to produce the coated spherical purified...
Back in 1908, when Ford Motor Company first started cranking out the Model T, the innovative automaker championed new materials, new engineering designs, and new manufacturing practices. More than a century later, automotive companies are emulating Henry Ford's strategy as they tackle the supply chain challenges of a similarly groundbreaking electric vehicle revolution. Styled these days as 'vertical integration production,' Henry Ford's idea of "a continuous, nonstop process...
At first glance, it appears that mining giants have been slow on the uptake during the booming market for battery materials. This may demonstrate an unusual lack of forethought, or over the next few years, may actually prove they've been two steps ahead. In less than a decade, the likes of lithium, cobalt, and graphite went from minor materials to a demand so intense that several electric vehicle (EV) and battery manufacturers are jumping the usual supply chain and investing...
In a surprising move, automotive multinational Stellantis has announced the acquisition of a 14.2% equity stake in McEwen Copper, a subsidiary of McEwen Mining, becoming the Canadian company's second-largest shareholder. This is an insightful move in Stellantis' sweeping decarbonization plan, placing the company over an aspect of its own strategic metal production as well as complementing its commitment to becoming a sustainable mobility tech provider. The industry leader's...
Already pushing the boundaries of portable energy storage technology through its development of solid-state batteries, Energy Exploration Technologies Inc. or EnergyX, announced a US$50 million funding from General Motors Co. to help the company develop its lithium extraction and refinery technology. EnergyX's direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology can extract lithium metal directly from brine and potentially in anode-ready form for electric vehicle batteries, enabling a...
Playing the long game, General Motors Co. announced a strategic investment with Quebec-based Lithion Recycling Inc. to support the automaker's pursuit of an eventual circular battery ecosystem using Lithion's advanced battery recycling technology. Touting a battery recovery rate of over 95% and utilizing the clean and green infrastructure already established in Quebec, Lithion's operations will supply GM with recycled materials that have little environmental impact – s...
General Motors, Stellantis, and Tesla moving further up battery supply chain With the batteries powering the electric vehicle revolution demanding more lithium than miners can produce, the price of this lightest metal in the universe rocketed more than 1,000% over the span of two years. This has prompted automakers such as Tesla and General Motors to become more directly involved in the mining and refining of the lithium-ion battery namesake. "Price of lithium has gone to...
Develops strategy to be the world's critical minerals supplier of choice Understanding that the renewable energy and electric vehicle revolution offers a "generational opportunity for Canada and its world-class mining sector," Ottawa is leveraging the nation's wealth of critical minerals to become a powerhouse that feeds raw materials into resource-hungry clean energy and technology supply chains. "Canada's Critical Minerals Strategy will position Canada as the global supplier...
Electric Vehicles require six times the minerals than their fossil fuel forebearers With even the most basic models boasting sophisticated driver-assist, navigation, infotainment, diagnostics, and other advanced digital systems being fed power from oversized versions of the lithium-ion batteries found in your laptop or smartphone, electric vehicles are becoming personal computers that you can drive. While this puts a whole new spin on the term mobile computing, riding around i...
In its race toward becoming North America's electric vehicle market leader by 2025, General Motors Co. has unveiled plans to invest roughly $7 billion in new lithium-ion battery and EV manufacturing facilities in Michigan, the single largest investment ever by the American automaker. "Today we are taking the next step in our continuous work to establish GM's EV leadership by making investments in our vertically integrated battery production in the U.S., and our North American...
Market and business research firm, IDTechEx, predicts that while battery electric vehicles (BEV) are paving the way for decarbonizing road transport, the hydrogen fuel cell will claim a leading role, an estimated US$160 billion role. In the latest report by UK-based tech speculator, "Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles 2022-2042," IDTechEx forecasts the market value of on-road fuel cell vehicles will grow to US$160 billion in 2042 at a compound annual growth rate of 23.9% over the...
In a move to help secure the lithium-ion battery metals required to achieve its aspiration of getting "Everybody in" an electric vehicle, General Motors has forged a strategic partnership with Controlled Thermal Resources Ltd. to source low-cost and environmentally responsible lithium from the Hell's Kitchen project at the Salton Sea Geothermal Field in Southern California. "Lithium is critical to battery production today and will only become more important as consumer...
Putting its foot to the "electric pedal" in a race toward the all-electric mobility future it envisions, General Motors has bolstered its investments into electric and autonomous vehicles to $35 billion from 2020 through 2025, a 75% increase over the $20 billion commitment it made prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are investing aggressively in a comprehensive and highly-integrated plan to make sure that GM leads in all aspects of the transformation to a more sustainable futu...
Detroit-based auto giant General Motors has taken an enormous leap towards an all-electric vehicle future with the reveal of their new Ultium battery and a plan to rapidly grow its EV portfolio, further ushering in the next generation of transportation. Household names from the Detroit carmaker, such as Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick have gone all-in towards the production of their electric vehicle models, expanding the EV lineup under GM to 22 vehicles by 2023, including...
With the goal of delivering renewable energy to electrical grids by the end of 2023 and near-zero-carbon lithium for General Motors electric vehicles the following year, Controlled Thermal Resources has launched drilling at its Hell's Kitchen geothermal project in Southern California. "We are very pleased to kick start our drilling program and we are on schedule to deliver the project's first 50MW (megawatts) of baseload renewable power in late 2023 and an estimated 20,000 ton...
Global governments and industries are setting increasingly ambitious targets for the phasing out of fossil fuel-burning automobiles in favor of electric vehicles charged with green energy. Achieving these grand climate objectives, however, is going to require an equally bold strategy to ensure there are plentiful supplies of the new generation of energy minerals and metals critical to building this revolution in the way the world generates and uses energy. The World Bank...
