6/17/2023 0 Comments Doodle car batteryElectric car buyers in China get tax rebates, cheaper vehicle registration, preferential parking and access to an extensive charging network. industry could disappear with the next presidential election cycle.Ĭhina has spent more than $130 billion on research incentives, government contracts and consumer subsidies, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Traditional cars are still very profitable, American workers need to be trained in new skills, and U.S. The main reasons: Labor costs are lower, and there are more equipment manufacturers in China.Īmerican investors remain wary about putting money into electric vehicles. The entire process needs to take place in rooms that minimize air particles and moisture.Ĭhina can build battery factories at nearly half the cost of countries in North America or Europe, according to Heiner Heimes, a professor at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. These are then stacked with separators, moistened with electrolytes, and rolled up. To make one, cathode and anode materials are attached to thin metal sheets each about one-fifth the thickness of a human hair. Chinese battery manufacturers like CATL and BYD grew at the expense of their Japanese and South Korean competitors and became the largest in the world.Įight years later, the Biden administration is now pursuing a similar strategy to foster battery development in the United States.īut in a business with huge capital costs and thin profit margins, Chinese companies have a big head start after years of state funding and experience.īattery assembly is complex and technical. In 2015, Beijing enacted policies to block foreign rivals and raise consumer demand. car brands.Ĭhina has the most electric cars on the road and nearly all of them use Chinese-made batteries. Graphic depicts cylindrical cells used by many U.S. Australia’s first lithium refinery, which has some Chinese ownership, was approved in 2016 but failed to produce battery-grade lithium until last year.Ĭomponents China makes most of the parts that go in a battery Training workers and adjusting equipment can take additional time. A refinery typically takes two to five years to build. Today the United States has little processing capability. Experts say that using more sustainable methods to process battery minerals drives up costs. Processing nickel generates toxic waste, which must be disposed of in special structures in the ocean or underground. Refining also often causes pollution, and Chinese refineries benefit from less stringent environmental regulations. This has caused refineries elsewhere to close. Supported by the government with cheap land and energy, Chinese companies have been able to refine minerals at larger volume and lower cost than everyone else. The preferred form of lithium, for example, needs to be heated, steamed and dried. Battery minerals require three to four times as much energy to make as steel or copper. The process is wasteful: Cobalt generates about 860 pounds of waste rock for each pound of refined cobalt powder. Once ore is taken from the ground, it is usually pulverized and then treated with heat and chemicals to isolate the mineral compounds. Regardless of who mines the minerals, nearly everything is shipped to China to be refined into battery-grade materials.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |