Nissan has recently released a new six year environmental agenda and is expanding the Smyrna facility with a $1 billion lithium battery plant on site with a capacity of up to 200,000 lithium battery packs per year with the potential both for domestic production and export.
For lithium investors the strong focus of technological innovations, including the latest in electric hybrids, pure electric solutions and hydrogen-powered models have already made the event a success as a showcase of both advanced concept models in addition to a more immediate term, and practical product display.
The question is not one of absolute feasibility; the question is one of economics and performance in the sense that how much more might it cost you to avoid lithium and REEs, and how much poorer performance will the resulting vehicle have.
Last week, three executives from French automotive manufacturer Renault were suspended after being suspected of leaking information on its electric vehicle program to China.
Cris Sheridan reports that the demand for lithium should continue to grow in the near future.
Toshiba Corp (TYO:6502) is targeting more than 10 percent of the rechargeable battery market share in five years, with an ambitious eye for a considerable distribution of the surging but highly competitive sector.
The US Department of Energy will be providing a $28.4 million grant to expand the Silver Peak lithium production facility operated by the Chemetall Foote subsidiary of Rockwood Holdings. The funding grant represents 50 percent of the estimated project development upgrading costs.
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