The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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In addition to dealing a major blow to the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic has shined a spotlight on a chink in the United States' economic and security armor – an overreliance on foreign countries for the minerals and metals that lie at the frontend of American supply chains. "The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how delicate our supply chains are and that should be a wakeup call for all of us," Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources Chair Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said d...
Two metals, nickel and titanium, come together in a unique alloy that is gaining popularity in new applications, including in outer space. Known as "nitinol," this high-demand metal is prized for its ability to snap back to a heat-trained shape after being pulled, twisted or deformed. Accidentally discovered by metallurgist William Buehler at the Navy Ordinance Laboratories in 1959, nitinol has been used in increasingly sophisticated applications over the years, finding...
January 8, 2021 may go down in history as the inflection point for the transition from the fossil fuel powered vehicles that transported humanity through the 20th century to the electric vehicles that will carry us into the future. This tipping point for global transportation offers a spectrum of challenges and opportunities to sustainably mine, refine, and recycle the minerals and metals needed to build this electric mobility future. Entering 2021, Tesla Inc. was celebrating...
As one of the largest automobile manufacturers on the planet, Toyota Motor Corporation, has long spearheaded low-carbon transportation. The company's latest move shows it means business, with a 10-year, US$3.4 billion (380 billion yen) investment into electric vehicle technologies in the United States. Specifically, the investment is for the development and localization of EV battery production and is part of a global total of approximately US$13.5 billion (1.5 trillion yen) s...
With the global transition to electric vehicles charged with renewable energy creating massive new demands for rare earth materials and magnets, copper, and electrical steel, General Motors and GE Renewable Energy are working together to evaluate opportunities to improve supplies of the materials critical to a low-carbon future. "A secure, sustainable and resilient local supply chain for electric vehicle materials is critical to the execution of GM's vision of an all-electric...
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...
Semis, trains, and now planes, General Motors' Hydrotec hydrogen fuel cell technology is offering a zero-carbon-emissions alternative to powering the way goods and people are being transported. Hydrogen fuel cells such as the Hydrotec technology developed by GM are much like batteries that generate their own electricity and heat by splitting hydrogen molecules into electrons and protons – electrons create a flow of electricity, and the protons unite with oxygen and to p...
While it is still several years before any significant quantities of the Ultium batteries going into the next generation of General Motors electric vehicles will reach the end of their lifecycle, the automaker is already establishing lithium-ion battery recycling capabilities at its Ultium battery cell manufacturing mega-factory in Lordstown, Ohio. To establish this capacity, Ultium Cells LLC, a joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solution, has entered into a multi-year con...
Continuing its shift toward electric mobility, General Motors has unveiled a new Chevrolet Silverado that has been rebooted as the company's first all-electric pickup. To be built at GM's new Factory ZERO assembly plant in Michigan, the Chevrolet e-Silverado has been designed from the ground up to be a full-size electric pickup, harnessing the fullest potential of GM's Ultium platform and the proven capability of Chevy's flagship truck. According to GM, the electric Silverado...
Ford Motor Company Feb. 17 announced a US$1 billion investment to transform its century old German-based vehicle assembly facility in Cologne, one of the largest manufacturing centers and the home of Ford in Europe, into the American automaker's first electric vehicle facility there. The news comes after Ford stated weeks earlier it was investing at least US$22 billion globally in electrification through 2025, which is nearly double its 2018 EV investment plan. "Our...
When it comes to the "Super Bowl" of electric vehicles, Norway is the undisputed world champion, a fact that does not sit well with Will Ferrell or General Motors. Behind the wheel of an all-electric Cadillac Lyriq, Farrell takes the EV fight to the "fish loving" Norwegians during a 60-second GM ad that aired during the first quarter of Super Bowl LV. "With GM's new Ultium battery, we are going to crush those lugers," Farrell vows on his way to enlist the help of Kenan...
In following a rebranding focused on mass adoption of electric mobility, General Motors announced the launch of a new venture, BrightDrop, intended to promote its growing electric vehicle market by offering a smarter and cleaner method of product distribution. With a new dependance on delivery-based goods and services in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, BrightDrop comes at a time of unexpected growth for this burgeoning industry as according to the World Economic Forum,...
In what may be an inflection point, not only for a legendary American automaker but for the future of automobiles around the globe, General Motors has set off on a new path, an all-electric path. Revamping, rehauling and rebranding, GM invites 'Everybody In' on its shift to an electric future. Announced Jan. 8, GM kicked off its newest 'Everybody In' campaign, setting an optimistic tone for the company's EV future focusing on three themes: • Exciting a new generation of b...
Working with General Motors, researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have discovered that a tiny bit of graphene can increase the conductivity of copper wire by 5%. "That may seem like a small amount, but it can make a big difference in motor efficiency," the Washington state lab penned in an article on the findings. "Higher conductivity also means that less copper is needed for the same efficiency, which can reduce the weight and volume of various components...
It is estimated that upwards of US$13.8 billion of rare earth magnets are imported into the United States each year, which is creating a stockpile of some of the most widely used rare earth elements. These powerful REE magnets are used in a wide variety of applications – high-performance motors in electric vehicles, wind turbines and generators, medical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and high-fidelity speakers to name a few. Canada-based Geomega Resources Inc. has d...
On Aug. 6, General Motors will introduce the world to the Cadillac Lyriq, an all-electric crossover SUV that will be the first in an upcoming portfolio of battery-electric luxury vehicles from Cadillac. The journey to this unveiling began back in 2019, when Cadillac announced it would spearhead General Motors' shift to an all-electric future and released the first images of a crossover built on GM's next-generation battery electric architecture. The story continued earlier thi...
An electric vehicle owner may be able to save a car payment or two per year due to the lower costs of powering up an EV compared to driving a similar gas car, according to a new analysis conducted by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory. While weighing the costs of buying an EV compared to a similar internal combustion engine car is straightforward, comparing the costs to keep them fueled up can be a...
USA Rare Earth LLC has acquired state-of-the-art neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnet manufacturing equipment, another key piece to the company's strategy to establish a complete rare earths mines-to-magnets supply chain in the United States. New York-based USA Rare Earth has already made major headway toward this objective as the funding and development partner at Round Top, a rare earth and critical minerals project about 85 miles southeast of El Paso. According to a prelim...
In its push to get "everybody in" on its transition to electric vehicles, General Motors is working closely with SolidEnergy Systems to accelerate the development of a next-generation Ultium battery to power safer, more affordable, and longer-range GM EVs. This coming iteration of the Ultium battery is expected to be lithium-metal, which promises to have twice the energy density, charge faster, and last longer than the state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries currently powering...
The ambitious 2035 target for a complete transition to electric vehicle sales set by most global automakers hinges on establishing reliable and responsible supply chains for the batteries that will power this envisioned electric mobility future. To help meet the burgeoning EV sector's battery material needs, First Cobalt Corp. is moving forward with an integrated battery refining, recycling, and manufacturing park in Ontario. "We see serious strains in the automotive supply...
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...
The lightest of all the metals in the universe, lithium has emerged as the namesake for the batteries powering electric vehicles down global highways and storing renewable energy for those EVs to plug into. This is on top of the countless laptops, tablets, smartphones, wearable electronics, power tools, household appliances, electric bikes, scooters, toys, and the seemingly endless list of electric devices made possible by lithium-ion batteries. "Lithium consumption for...
An unsung war hero that saved countless American troops during World War II, an overlooked battery material that has played a pivotal role in storing electricity for more than 100 years, and a major ingredient in futuristic grid-scale energy storage, antimony is among the most important critical metalloids that most people have never heard of. While antimony may not be part of the common lexicon, humans have been using this semi-metal for more than 5,000 years. "For example,...
Reminiscent of America's gilded age, the world is priming itself for a new era of technology and energy centered on the electricity that sparked the imaginations of visionaries such as Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. This new era, however, sets aside more than a century of burning fossil fuels in favor of new clean sources of the electricity that will power human innovation into the 21st century and beyond. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are but a few of the methods...
