• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy March 28, 2023
Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead March 26, 2023
B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns March 26, 2023
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

Nissan, Hyundai May Add Range Anxiety-Busting Battery to 2019 EV Models

August 28, 2018
Reading time: 3 minutes

Bontenbal/Wikimedia Commons

Bontenbal/Wikimedia Commons

 

Industry reports are beginning to confirm long-standing rumours that the LG Chem battery that powers the range anxiety-busting Chevy Bolt will soon be finding its way into electric vehicles manufactured by Nissan and Hyundai.

“When you have a bigger battery, with more capacity, it just opens up the door to be able to have more output,” said Nissan Director of EV Marketing and Sales Strategy Brian Maragno. “A larger capacity battery lends itself towards two things. One is obvious: more range. The other one, which is maybe a little less obvious, but equally as true, is additional horsepower and output,” he told participants at a recent promotional event.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
Subscribe

“This suggests that the 2019 Nissan Leaf will get the same powertrain made by LG Chem for the Hyundai Kona Electric,” said Pedro Lima of the PushEVs blog, in a post cited on CleanTechnica. “All of this starts to put the 2019 LEAF in competitive territory with the Tesla Model 3 and certainly the Chevy Bolt,” CleanTechnica states, though it still falls short of the fast-charging capacity and some of the “wicked cool” but not strictly functional features available in the Model 3.

The added range that Korean industrial giant LG seems poised to bring to the Leaf and the Kona will land well with anyone who’s studied EV performance specifications as a potential buyer with range anxiety. In a 2016 analysis on Green Car Reports, the LG battery emerged as the key element of GM’s effort to deliver the 2017 Bolt as a 200-mile/320-kilometre EV. [Editor’s note/acknowledgement: This isn’t a product placement, but it’s written based on household experience.]

At the time, Green Car Reports framed the Bolt EV powertrain as the result of a design and production collaboration between the two companies. “LG Chem—which supplies lithium-ion cells from Holland, Michigan for the Chevrolet Volt and Spark EV, and the Cadillac ELR and CT6 Plug-In Hybrid—designed, engineered, and tested the Bolt EV’s battery system to performance and packaging specifications supplied by GM,” the blog stated. At one point or another, four LG units—LG Chem, LG Innotek, LG Display, and LG Electronics—had a hand in different components of the car.

“In South Korea, LG Electronics is investing more than US$250 million in a Korean facility to support development and manufacturing of components for the Bolt EV, most notably the electric motor,” wrote Senior Editor John Voelcker. “It will also manufacture the car’s power electronics modules to specifications mandated by GM.”

“We intend to do [EVs] better, more efficiently, and more cost-effectively than anybody else can,” GM’s head of global product development, Mark Reuss, said at the time. He described the GM-LG partnership as “a different kind of [Original Equipment Manufacturer]-supplier relationship”, and an “expansion” of a collaboration that began in 2008.

With speculation building about automakers’ 2019 EV product lines, Greentech Media reports there’s little reason to fear a drop-off in production of battery-grade lithium carbonate in response to falling commodity prices.

Lithium prices roughly doubled from 2016 through early 2018, Greentech notes, and as recently as April, the Moody’s ratings agency reported that demand was still rising. More recently, though, a minerals industry bulletin is attributing falling lithium carbonate prices to “sluggish demand from downstream buyers”, with industry analysts at Macquarie Research warning that the lithium market was “sleepwalking into a tsunami of oversupply.”

The underlying issue is that lithium carbonate prices in China, the world’s largest consumer of the substance, have fallen 44% since December 2017. “While low lithium prices should be a good thing for the lithium-ion battery industry, some analysts worry that price drops will discourage new investments in production facilities and thus create shortages once demand picks up,” Greentech states.

But at least two industry officials pushed back on Macquarie’s dire assessment.

“There will be projects built,” said Robert Mintak, CEO of Vancouver-based Standard Lithium, although “it’s not going to be easy either way.”

“The lithium chemicals end-use product is in short supply,” added Argosy Minerals Managing Director Jerko Zuvela. “There’s not enough of it and you can’t produce it fast enough.”



in Auto & Alternative Vehicles, Batteries / Storage, Community Climate Finance, Ending Emissions

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

kelly8843496 / Pixabay
Finance & Investment

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
688
icondigital/pixabay
Supply Chains & Consumption

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
188
UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr
Drought, Famine & Wildfires

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
41

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

kelly8843496 / Pixabay

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
688
Faye Cornish/Unsplash

Abundance, Not Austerity: Reframe the Climate Narrative, Solnit Urges

March 26, 2023
166
TruckPR/flickr

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 28, 2023
385
U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement/flickr

Willow Oil Project in Alaska Faces Legal Challenges, Economic Doubts

March 19, 2023
769
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Ontario Faces Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuits Over Cancelled Carbon Pricing Program

May 14, 2022
206
moerschy / Pixabay

Fringe Conspiracy Theories Target 15-Minute City Push in Edmonton, Toronto

February 22, 2023
1.8k

Recent Posts

icondigital/pixabay

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
188
UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
41
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns

March 28, 2023
64
Prime Minister's Office/flickr

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 28, 2023
89
EUMETSAT/wikimedia commons

Cyclone Freddy Leaves Over 500 Dead on Africa’s Southeast Coast

March 23, 2023
63
Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
342
Next Post
SanJoaquinRTD/Wikimedia Commons

Electric Bus Fleets on the Rise Despite Koch Network Attacks

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}