If we go to the trouble of shredding every last ounce of lithium on the planet just so we can blast nine-gazillion-ton electric pickup trucks down the road on autopilot, they better be good for the environment. All that and more in The Morning Shift for April 11, 2022.
1st Gear: New study claims 74 tons of CO2 saved vs. 45
I guess if we’re building giant pickups anyway, they might as well be electric. A new study suggests EV pickups do a lot to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere, even compared to EV cars. From Bloomberg:
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 totaled 6.6 billion tons, with the transportation sector being the top polluter. Sedans, SUVs and pickups accounted for 1.1 billion tons. According to a study commissioned by Ford from the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems, a battery-powered vehicle will reduce emissions over its lifetime by:
- 74 tons for a pickup
- 56 tons for an SUV
- 45 tons for a sedan
It’s a bigger question, I think, what happens when Americans actually all try an electric pickup, find out that hauling half the time a year that bothers them sucks, and hate those things? Ford seems aware of what’s at stake:
“This vehicle is a test for the introduction of electric vehicles”, [Chief Executive Officer Jim] Farley said when the truck was unveiled last May. “We should all watch very closely how that feels.”
I’m not entirely sure what Ford’s contingency plan is if the Lightning flops. Give up? blame us?
2nd gear: In fact, we need to mine a lot more lithium
All the saved CO2 does not come out of nowhere! If you want powerful, long-range electric pickups, you need gigantic lithium-ion batteries, and that doesn’t come for free, as the Financial Times reminds us all:
Battery makers are facing severe lithium shortages, underscoring the need to challenge China’s dominance in commodity supply chains, an Australian lithium producer has warned.
Lake Resources chairman Stuart Crow said Western companies and governments have failed to establish adequate supply chains for lithium, making the sudden boom in electric vehicle manufacturing unsustainable.
“There just won’t be enough lithium on the surface of the planet, no matter who’s expanding and who’s supplying, it just won’t be there,” he said. “Automakers are starting to realize that battery manufacturers might not be able to deliver.”
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, this news comes from Australia, the world’s largest lithium mining country.
3rd Gear: I guess now that Russia has invaded Ukraine everyone likes hydrogen
On the subject of clean transportation, Europe suddenly seems interested in finding alternatives to natural gas now that the country that supplies natural gas to the rest of Europe is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing. From Bloomberg:
Europe’s push to wean itself off Russian natural gas is triggering new billions of dollars in commitments to build a low-carbon hydrogen market.
A nearly 450% surge in European gas prices over the past year has made the green fuel of the future cost-competitive about a decade ahead of schedule, according to BloombergNEF. Now investment funds are joining governments and utilities in ambitious plans to make hydrogen a viable substitute for fossil fuels in manufacturing, transportation and heating.
“It’s kind of a tipping point,” said Phil Caldwell, chief executive officer at Ceres Power Holdings Plc, a UK-based hydrogen technology company. “You’re going to see that capital coming in on a large scale now. There is no turning back.”
Current fads in energy use can have real long-term impacts on the road, like the year everyone bought diesel cars in the 80’s when they feared Germany would ban leaded petrol and they wouldn’t be able to drive freely around Europe on holiday.
4th gear: GM sales in China down 21%
Things are not looking good for GM in China at the moment, as Automotive News reports:
GM sales in China fell 21 percent year-on-year to 613,000 in the first quarter. Sales of its top-selling brand, Chevrolet, fell nearly 20 percent over the same period. The lockdown, one of the biggest tests of China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, has forced automakers and suppliers to either try to adapt with extreme measures to keep factories open at a time when demand for vehicles is strong to run or discontinue and risk delivery delays.[…]GM said in March that its Shanghai manufacturing plants were operating normally and were unaffected by the city’s lockdown measures
5th Gear: Nio, VW, SAIC are still closed in China due to Covid
GM is far from alone when it comes to selling cars in China. As Reuters reports, many companies are struggling to get started. First, there’s EV newcomer Nio:
Nio Inc. said Saturday it halted production after China’s measures to contain the recent spate of COVID-19 cases halted operations at key suppliers.
“Since March, due to reasons related to the epidemic, the company’s supplier partners have stopped production in several places including Jilin, Shanghai and Jiangsu one by one and have yet to recover,” the company said on its mobile app.
“Because of this impact, Nio had to stop car production.”
But also Tesla and VW, which are also Shanghai-centric:
Tesla has suspended production at its Shanghai plant since March 28, Reuters reported, after the city instituted a two-stage lockdown that was later expanded to city-wide. Volkswagen’s joint-venture plant with FAW Group in Changchun, the provincial capital of Jilin, has since closed in mid-March, while the Shanghai plant with SAIC Motor Corp. has been closed since April 1st.
Back: Metaphor sets out for the moon
You know how come nobody ever talks about all those other boring Apollo missions where things didn’t go wrong:
Neutral: How are you?
I have now locked my keys in my car twice in two weeks. How long will I keep my streak going? Maybe I can set some kind of record.