Tag: Batteries

U.S. Debates How Much to Sever Electric Car Industry’s Ties to China

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The Biden administration has been trying to jump-start the domestic supply chain for electric vehicles so cleaner cars can be made in the United States. But the experience of one Texas company, whose plans to help make an all-American electric vehicle were upended by China, highlights the stakes involved as the administration finalizes rules governing the industry. Huntsman Corporation started construction two years ago on a $50 million plant in Texas to make ethylene carbonate, a chemical that is used in electric vehicle batteries. It would have been the only…

A New Law Supercharged Electric Car Manufacturing, but Not Sales

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President Biden’s signature climate law has stimulated a surge of investment in electric vehicle production across the country, including tens of billions of dollars on battery plants across the South and new assembly lines near the Great Lakes. Based on early evidence, it is succeeding at a goal that economists have long considered difficult and costly: using the power of government to rapidly grow a new industry. That growth could prove crucial for the other side of the electric vehicle equation: enticing more consumers to buy them. That’s because Mr.…

Why Trump and the Rest of the G.O.P. Won’t Stop Bashing Electric Vehicles

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Fresh off a walking tour of blighted Flint, Mich., on Wednesday, Vivek Ramaswamy spoke excitedly about a comeback for the “forgotten America” that he has made a part of his long-shot bid for the presidency. He wasn’t promising that the automakers that had largely abandoned Flint would return. “We have opportunities, though, to look to the future of a lot that we need to bring to this country,” Mr. Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old entrepreneur, said, ticking through the industries that he’d like to see help drive a revival: semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, defense…

Lawmakers Challenge Ford and Chinese Battery Partner Over Forced Labor

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A partnership between Ford Motor and a major Chinese battery maker is facing scrutiny by Republican lawmakers, who say it could make an American automaker reliant on a company with links to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. In a letter sent to Ford on Thursday, the chairs of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Ways and Means Committee demanded more information about the partnership, including what they said was a plan by Ford to employ several hundred workers from China at a new…

Tesla’s Profit Rose in the Second Quarter as Price Cuts Spurred Demand

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Tesla reported a rise in profit for the second quarter after the company led by Elon Musk cut prices in response to increased competition and higher borrowing costs for car buyers. The company said on Wednesday that it earned $2.7 billion from April through June, compared with $2.5 billion in the first quarter of this year and $2.3 billion in the second quarter of 2022. Sales rose 7 percent, to $25 billion, from last quarter. Lower average sales prices, as well as the cost to produce a new pickup truck,…

Europe Frets U.S. Battery Factory Subsidies Will Hurt, Not Help

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European leaders complained for years that the United States was not doing enough to fight climate change. Now that the Biden administration has devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to that cause, many Europeans are complaining that the United States is going about it the wrong way. That new critique is born of a deep fear in Germany, France, Britain and other European countries that Washington’s approach will hurt the allies it ought to be working with, luring away much of the new investments in electric car and battery factories not already…

The U.S. Needs Minerals for Electric Cars. Everyone Else Wants Them Too.

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For decades, a group of the world’s biggest oil producers has held huge sway over the American economy and the popularity of U.S. presidents through its control of the global oil supply, with decisions by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries determining what U.S. consumers pay at the pump. As the world shifts to cleaner sources of energy, control over the materials needed to power that transition is still up for grabs. China currently dominates global processing of the critical minerals that are now in high demand to make…

Battery Factories Are Driving Chinese Investment in Europe

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Battery makers from China are rapidly expanding in Europe, responding to a growing market for electric vehicles while bucking an overall contraction in Chinese investment on the continent. Mostly shunned from North America because of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which seeks to reduce American companies’ dependence on China’s supply chain, battery makers in China have instead focused on Europe, the world’s second-largest market for electric vehicles. They have become the main source of Chinese investment in the region, according to a study released on early Tuesday local time by…

Tesla’s Profit Dropped Sharply in First Quarter as It Cut Prices

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Tesla’s profit fell sharply in the first three months of the year after it cut the prices of its electric vehicles, the company said on Wednesday. The carmaker, led by Elon Musk, said it had made $2.5 billion in the first quarter, a drop from $3.7 billion in the last three months of last year and $3.3 billion in the first quarter of 2022. Tesla sold more electric cars in the United States last year than all its competitors combined. But its market share slipped as traditional carmakers like General…

In China, a Big Auto Show Returns to a Country That Has Gone Electric

Chin@Strategy

A hall showing off electric vehicles made by Nio, XPeng Motors, Zeekr and dozens of other Chinese companies was mobbed with visitors. An area nearby full of gasoline-powered cars by foreign brands barely got a second look by anyone. At the same event, Volkswagen, which vies with Toyota to be the world’s biggest seller of cars with combustion engines, issued a bold forecast: Within two years, half the cars sold in China, the world’s largest automobile market, will be electric, up from only 6 percent in 2020. The theme at…