Volkswagen to invest in mining operations to reduce battery costs

Volkswagen to invest in mining operations to reduce battery costs

German carmaking giant Volkswagen has announced it intends to invest in battery raw material mines in order to reduce the costs of EV batteries produced by its in-house battery unit PowerCo. The strategy is intended to help meet half of the company’s own raw materials demand, as well as enable the supply of materials and batteries to other players in the market. PowerCo already has an agreement in place with Ford to supply batteries for the American company which is planning 1.2 million EVs to be manufacture in Europe using VW’s MEB platform. Despite having not yet reached mass-production scale, PowerCo is targeting…

 

 

The full article is available to Rho Motion Members on the Membership Platform. If you are not a Member and would like to find out more, click here.

 

 

Image credit: Adobe Stock

Tesla Investor Day 2023 – New Gigafactory confirmed among a focus on innovation and efficiency

Tesla Investor Day 2023 – New Gigafactory confirmed among a focus on innovation and efficiency

Tesla has confirmed that it will build a Gigafactory in Mexico. The announcement was made by the company’s CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday 1 March 2023 during Tesla’s Investor Day event. The plant will be located in Nuevo Leon near the city of Monterrey, a northern Mexican state bordering Texas and strategically located near the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas.  Tesla’s next-generation vehicle will be manufactured at the facility, reportedly valued at USD5 billion, and will provide around 6,000 jobs. Further details on the new model, the plant’s production capacity and specific investment amounts are yet to be released. This is the first official announcement on the plant, with the Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador confirming Tesla’s future presence in the country after a phone call with Musk on Tuesday 28 February 2023.

 

 

The full article is available to Rho Motion Members on the Membership Platform. If you are not a Member and would like to find out more, click here.

 

 

 

 

Image credit: Adobe Stock

Ford announces USD3.5 billion Michigan LFP battery park using CATL technology

Ford announces USD3.5 billion Michigan LFP battery park using CATL technology

On 13 February 2023, American vehicle manufacturer Ford has announced a new battery production facility based in the US. The USD 3.5 billion Blue Oval Battery Park will be based in Marshall, Michigan, and will produce LFP battery cells in partnership with CATL. The two companies formed a business partnership in July last year when Ford announced that CATL cells would be deployed in Mustang Mach-E models in the North American market as of 2023, and for the F-150 Lightning series in early 2024.

 

 

 

The full article is available to Rho Motion Members on the Membership Platform. If you are not a Member and would like to find out more, click here.

Monthly EV Global Sales Infographic – December 2022

 

Our Monthly EV Global Sales Infographic draws on work from our EV Battery Chemistry Monthly Assessment and our EV & Battery Quarterly Outlook.

The EV Battery Chemistry Monthly Assessment Each analyses the latest in EV and battery market developments and provides our regular assessment of EV battery demand by battery chemistry and vehicle class. Click here to request a sample of this report.

The EV & Battery Quarterly Outlook provides long-term outlooks for EV penetration, battery pack size and chemistry by vehicle class, based on robust and informed methodologies. Click here to request a sample of this report.

Highlights from this month’s assessment include:

  • Tesla announce USD3.6 billion investment in Giga Nevada, to include 100GWh 4680 cell production, equivalent to over 1.2 million EVs.
  • POSCO Chemicals and Samsung SDI sign ten-year NCA cathode supply deal worth USD32.6 billion.
  • December was the strongest month to date for EV sales, with BEV & PHEV sales reaching 1.29 million units across all vehicle classes. This brings full year 2022 sales to 10.3 million units for PC & LDV and 10.4 across all vehicle classes.

 

Global PC & LDV EV sales reached 10.3 million in 2022, with 7.6 million BEV sales and 2.7 million PHEV sales. This data is taken from our EV & Battery Monthly Database. If you would like to find out more, click here.

Why do we track EV sales and EV battery demand?

As EV and battery market analysts, we track EV sales across all vehicle classes, cathode and anode chemistry, and battery demand on a monthly basis. Our tracker is used for analysis on the implications for raw material demand, and for the deployment of battery packs so that our members and followers can better understand what is driving global EV sales and battery demand.

Who benefits from understanding EV sales and EV battery demand?

In order to form robust strategies and informed policies, battery manufacturers, OEMs, EV battery technology companies and policy makers need a solid grasp of what EV battery demand looks like from region to region, and from one time period to the next. Anyone operating within the EV supply chain, will benefit from understanding EV battery demand, what is driving it and how it affects the EV market as a whole.

As part of the work involved to produce our EV and battery products, we publish a monthly EV Sales infographic, to offer our members and followers regular insights into how EV sales are developing globally. The infographic provides news highlights, and insights into monthly EV sales by region, top OEMs YTD, top five BEVs sold globally YTD, and global BEV and PHEV share, YTD.

How do we track the EV and battery markets?

Our EV Battery Chemistry Monthly Assessment, and our EV & Battery Quarterly Outlook both contain in-depth analysis into EV battery demand, EV sales and all other key variables that shape the EV and battery markets.

The EV Battery Chemistry Assessment is a weighted average of vehicle battery chemistry across passenger car and light duty vehicle, bus and coach, and medium and heavy duty vehicle sectors. Electric vehicle sales data is collected on a model-by-model basis from automotive associations at country level for both BEV and PHEV vehicles for major markets. This analysis covers a minimum of 90% of total global market sales, and provides a balanced representation of markets with different vehicle characteristics, suppliers and seasonality. Our EV battery demand index is derived from this data.

Our forecasts are based on robust and informed methodologies looking at the interactions between different functions in the supply chain. We track the following variables that impact the forecast: Legislation and incentives, OEM strategy, battery manufacturers’ capital investment and battery chemistry strategy, battery raw material pricing and costs, charging infrastructure investment, electric vehicle cost of ownership and consumer behaviour. For each vehicle model we collect data relating to battery pack size, battery chemistry, cell format, number of cells, and pack supplier in addition to a number of other vehicle metrics

How could our data help you?

Our insight and analysis on the EV market and battery technology advances, allow our clients to be fully up to date on latest developments, and will help inform the ways in which they react and respond to changing market dynamics. Businesses with an interest in the EV supply chain, from battery raw materials suppliers, battery manufacturers, OEMs, to charging infrastructure providers, will find it easier to form considered and forward-thinking strategies when equipped with Rho Motion data and analysis.

Rho Motion’s EV & Battery Market Reports 

To find out more about our EV & battery market reports, click on the links below or contact us on +44 (0) 203 960 9986. Alternatively complete the form below and we will be in touch.

EV & Battery Chemistry Monthly Assessment >>

EV & Battery Quarterly Outlook >>

EV & Battery Monthly Database >>

EV Motors Monthly Assessment >>

Hybrid EV & Battery Quarterly Outlook >>

To see our latest news and gain access to our content pieces, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

EV Motor Deployment Infographic – January 2023

Below is the January 2023 version of our EV Motor Deployment Infographic, which draws on data from our EV Motors Monthly Assessment and our EV Motors and Systems Quarterly Assessment.

The EV Motors Monthly Assessment provides monthly weighted averages of motor technology demand across vehicle classes, detailing the power and quantity deployed regionally and by vehicle segment. Click here to request a sample of this report.

The EV Motors & Systems Quarterly Outlook forecast provides long-term outlooks for EV penetration, motor technology split, number of motors per vehicle and average vehicle power by vehicle class, based on robust and informed methodologies. Click here to request a demo of this report.

 

Highlights from this month’s assessment include:
  • LKAB in Sweden discovered a large deposit of rare earth metals near its iron-ore mine in Kiruna, extraction is still a long way off but this is a positive for Europe’s underdeveloped mining capabilities in this area.
  • The Dongfeng Fengshen E70 became the first EV to utilise in-wheel motors in a new all-wheel-drive version of the car.
  • This month’s technology spotlight looks at regenerative braking in EVs, its uses and implications.

In December we again saw the highest ever total for EV motor deployment at 1.63 million motors in BEVs and PHEVs. This brought the total for 2022 to 13.1 million motors. In December PMSM technology secured 80% of the motor deployments, slightly lower than its share over the course of the whole year.
Rho Motion’s Vehicle Power Tracker saw a levelling off in December 2022, actually falling by a fraction of a kW. This is surprising as the seasonal trend for vehicle power is to see consecutive rises in the 2nd and 3rd month of each quarter. In the past this has predominantly been driven by Tesla’s quarterly delivery cycle overlaying a broadly rising vehicle power background. This levelling off could be a sign of Tesla’s delivery cycle beginning to even out, something Tesla executives have been hoping to implement for some months now as the logistical challenges become too difficult. It will remain to be seen whether this is the case especially with price cuts from Tesla in January driving significant order growth in the US especially.

Why do we track EV motors?

As Electric Vehicle and battery market analysts, we track the development of EV motors and motor technology market share across the EV industry, on a monthly basis. Our EV Motors Monthly Assessment is an invaluable tool in understanding how the various technologies affect upstream material demand, particularly copper and rare earth elements, as well as how supply chains of those materials will affect future motor technologies. This report also keeps track of technological developments and movements in the power electronics industry.

Who benefits from subscribing to our EV Motors Monthly Assessment?

The EV Motors Monthly Assessment provides in-depth analysis of vehicle motor power, upstream material demand, and technological developments across the market. This makes it relevant to a wide variety of companies.

This report acts as an invaluable tool to those involved in the motor manufacturing and automotive part supplying industries, where it can be used to inform and build key policies and strategies. It is also a useful reference for those in the investment world, who may be looking to invest into a lesser-known part of the EV sector where significant energy and resources are focused. Other than that, this report can be used to help people better understand the technical side of the market, the dynamics involved, and which technologies are popular.

Anyone operating within the EV supply chain, will benefit from understanding the EV motor market, what is driving it and how it affects the wider EV market.

As part of the work involved to produce our EV Motors Monthly Assessment, we publish a monthly Electric Vehicle Power Tracker, (the full archive can be seen on our membership platform), to offer our members and followers regular insights into power vehicles demand. The Electric Vehicle Power Tracker is an assessment of the sales weighted average maximum total power for PC & LDVs (PHEV & BEV). This is based on monthly vehicle sales and our model-by-model analysis of vehicle motor power.

How do we track the EV motor market?

Our EV Motors Monthly Assessment is a weighted average of electric motor technology across the electric vehicle sector and contains in-depth analysis of vehicle motor power and upstream material demand.

Electric vehicle sales data is obtained from automotive associations at country level. This is done on a model-by-model basis for both BEV and PHEV vehicles for all major markets, and covers a minimum of 90% of total global market sales. This analysis provides a balanced representation of markets with different vehicle characteristics, suppliers and seasonality.

From this stage we assign the appropriate motor technology to each EV model, as multiple motors, often of differing technologies, are common in some vehicle variations. We model this split to generate the most precise overall picture of the industry, which in turn allows us to track the metrics available in the assessment.

Estimates are used where EV specific model data is not explicitly stated. This is based on industry and company reports and primary research. These are then substantiated when official data becomes available.

How could our data help you?

Our insight and analysis on the EV market and battery technology advances, allow our clients to be fully up to date on latest developments, and will help inform the ways in which they react and respond to changing market dynamics. Businesses with an interest in the EV supply chain, from battery raw materials suppliers, battery manufacturers, OEMs, to charging infrastructure providers, will find it easier to form considered and forward-thinking strategies when equipped with Rho Motion data and analysis.

Rho Motion’s EV & Battery Market Reports

To find out more about our EV & battery market reports, click on the links below or contact us on +44 (0) 203 960 9986. Alternatively complete the form below and we will be in touch.

EV & Battery Chemistry Monthly Assessment >>

EV & Battery Quarterly Outlook >>

EV & Battery Monthly Database >>

EV Motors Monthly Assessment >>

Hybrid EV & Battery Quarterly Outlook >>

To see our latest news and gain access to our content pieces, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Tesla boost Nevada investment and announce cell and Semi factory plans

Tesla boost Nevada investment and announce cell and Semi factory plans

On Tuesday 24 January, Tesla made a series of announcements regarding production capacity and operational investments. The company will invest a further USD3.6 billion to grow its Nevada production facility, bringing the cumulative investment to date in the site to USD9.6 billion. Further, the announcement included plans to construct a 100GWh annual capacity 4680 cell production facility as well as the first high-volume Tesla Semi manufacturing site. The two new factories will be located within the Nevada Gigafactory.

 

 

 

The full article is available to Rho Motion Members on the Membership Platform. If you are not a Member and would like to find out more, click here.

 

 

 

Image credit: Adobe Stock