EV

If you’re thinking about buying an electric vehicle, whether due to soaring fuel prices or to lower your greenhouse gas emissions, where you live can make a huge difference to how climate-friendly your car is.

Mineral Resources Limited along with its joint venture partners is set to double the spodumene output of its Mount Marion Lithium mine over the course of 2022 in response to enormous lithium price due to electric vehicle demand.

The Greens have announced a $6.1 billion plan to boost the uptake of electric vehicles and reestablish auto manufacturing in its previous hub, South Australia.

Hertz, one of Australia and indeed the world’s biggest car rental companies, has announced it will be adding up to 65,000 new electric vehicles (EVs) to its fleet. While the percentage of those bound for Australia is still being negotiated, it adds to the rapid growth of our EV market – albeit from a low baseline.

Photovoltaics can wipe out 4.25 billion tonnes of carbon emissions every year this decade, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Even so, the actions announced so far remain way short of what is needed, with capital flows to fossil fuels still greater than the cash directed toward combating climate change.

Western Australian miner Iluka Resources will build Australia’s first integrated rare earths refinery to supply electric vehicle and renewable energy industries. The project has been enabled by a $1.25 billion loan from the Commonwealth government and is part of a broader push within Australia to establish ourselves as a serious alternative to China for the supply of processed critical minerals.

A West Australian joint venture seeking to recover high-purity vanadium from a steel industry waste product using a carbon negative process has won the support of the European Union. “We’re not the first people to look at that project, but we’re the first people to look at it through a different lens and use this type of process,” Neometals’ General Manager of Commercial and Investor Relations, Jeremy McManus, told pv magazine Australia. The project, which is still in the early stages, is already been sought out by potential offtakers “desperate to secure green vanadium,” McManus added.

Researchers from The University of Queensland have developed a new nanotechnology that they say more than doubles the lifespan of high-voltage lithium-ion batteries, paving the way for higher density and lower-cost energy storage solutions.

Electric vehicle batteries are packed with energy, with additional battery density and efficiency working to quell range anxiety for drivers. But with that capability lingers a concern from some that EVs may pose a fire risk and a challenge for first responders in the event of accidents. Western Australia’s Professor Ray Wills from Future Smart Strategies bought his first EV in 2012 and argues that in terms of safety, EVs remain an easily superior vehicle, and even the tiny fire risk that exists is an ever-diminishing issue.

Analyst Wood Mackenzie has predicted soaring demand for electric vehicle devices will ensure supply will not keep pace with demand until some point in 2023.