More than a dozen companies in Zhejiang, eastern China, have halted production in response to tightened curbs after the province reported 173 locally transmitted coronavirus cases with confirmed symptoms over Dec. 6-12…Greatpower has monthly capacity to make 3,000 tonnes of cobalt sulphate, a key ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), in the Zhejiang city of Shaoxing…"According to the relevant laws and regulations ... the novel coronavirus outbreak is recognised as a force majeure event," the notice said…Chinese metals research house Antaike said in a note that there were two cobalt chemical producers affected by the Shaoxing measures. It did not name either company but said it expects the impact to last at least a month and to reduce monthly output by 1,200-1,500 tonnes on a metal content basis…Prices are expected to rise in the near term and EV battery makers will feel the shortages, it said…"Even if the epidemic is brought under control, it will be difficult to reach full production immediately," Antaike added.

Toyota Motor Corp on Tuesday committed 8 trillion yen ($70 billion) to electrify its automobiles by 2030, half of it to develop a battery electric vehicle (BEV) line-up, as it looks to tap a growing market for zero-emission cars…But the world's biggest carmaker, which is a relative latecomer to full electric cars, said it expected annual BEVs sales to reach only 3.5 million vehicles by the end of the decade, or around a third of its current vehicle sales…That is less than bigger rivals such as Europe's No. 1 carmaker Volkswagen, which in July predicted that half of its global vehicle sales will be battery-powered cars by that date…It comes as traditional automobile firms increasingly take on Tesla Inc, which has become the most valuable carmaker this year. Tesla's market value reached over $1 trillion in October, surpassing the combined value of Toyota, VW, Daimler AG, Ford Motor and General Motors Co…Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo surrounded by more than a dozen planned BEV models, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said his company was still pursuing a multi-pronged, carbon-reduction strategy that also includes hybrid cars and hydrogen-powered vehicles…His company's plan to introduce a full line-up of 30 BEV's by 2030 goes beyond the 15 models Toyota earlier said it would have available by 2025. The Japanese carmaker on Tuesday also said it planned to invest 2 trillion yen in battery production by 2030, up from the 1.5 trillion yen it announced earlier…EVs still only account for a small portion of car sales, but the market is growing rapidly, with new registrations up 41% in 2020 even as the global car market contracted by a sixth that year…In addition to electrified cars, Toyota is also developing internal combustion engines that run on hydrogen fuel. Toyoda said the technology could help to save some of Japan's 5.5 million auto jobs by allowing the car company to keep supply chains that would disappear with a full shift to electric cars.

Northvolt will build a lithium processing plant with Portugal's Galp Energia with investments estimated at around 700 million euros ($789.6 million), as demand grows for lithium-ion batteries to power electric vehicles…A 50/50 owned joint venture - Aurora - will operate the plant which will have an initial annual production capacity of up to 35,000 tons of lithium hydroxide, a key material for lithium-ion battery makers, the Swedish company said on Tuesday…Northvolt, whose biggest shareholder is Volkswagen, said the plant, located in Portugal, would be Europe's largest and start commercial operations in 2026…"The joint venture is currently conducting technical and economic studies and looking at several possible site locations", Northvolt said in a statement…The plant will be able to deliver enough lithium hydroxide for 50 gigawatt hours of battery production per year, with Northvolt using up to 50% of the plant's capacity for its battery making.

Major Chinese lithium cathode material (CAM) precursor producer CNGR Advanced Material will partner with Finland's state-owned Finnish Minerals Group (FMG) to build a CAM precursor production plant in Finland, to meet robust demand from the European electric vehicle (EV) industry…The joint venture will construct a facility for lithium nickel-cobalt-manganese oxide (NCM) precursor with high nickel content, with a capacity of no more than 120,000 t/yr. The first phase of 20,000 t/yr is scheduled to start production in 2024, with an investment of €200mn ($225.6mn)…Europe is the world's second largest power battery market, with demand expected to exceed 900GWh in 2030, according to research institute Roland Berger of Germany, quoted by CNGR…CNGR is the world's largest lithium-ion battery cathode precursor manufacturer, followed by Chinese firm GEM with a capacity target of 200,000 t/yr by the end of this year. CNGR's downstream buyers include Chinese lithium cathode material manufacturers XTC New Energy Materials (Xiamen Tungsten), Beijing Easpring, Ningbo Rongbay, BTR, Reshine and Zhenhua, Germany's BASF, CATL, South Korean battery producers LG Chem, Samsung SDI and SKI and US EV producer Tesla…CNGR sold 68,000t of NCM precursors in the first half of this year, up by 152pc from a year ago, with its cobalt tetroxide sales increasing by 64pc over the same period to 11,500t. It has a tetroxide capacity of 25,000 t/yr.

Ford Motor Co expects to triple the output of its all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUV to over 200,000 units per year by 2023 for North America and Europe, its Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley said in a tweet on Friday…"It's hard to produce Mustang Mach-Es fast enough to meet the incredible demand, but we are sure going to try." …Last week, a top Ford executive said that the company was aiming for annual EV production capacity of nearly 600,000 within the next two years, which would also include its Lightning pickup and E-Transit van…Lisa Drake, the chief operating officer of Ford North America, said that the company's optimism stemmed from increasing demand for its F-150 Lightning pickup, with retail reservations approaching 200,000…Automotive News reported earlier on Friday that Ford was postponing the production of electric versions of the Explorer and Lincoln Aviator crossovers by about one and a half years to increase manufacturing of its Mustang Mach-E SUVs…Ford told its suppliers that production of these new EVs is now scheduled to start in December 2024, according to the report.

The Biden administration released an ambitious federal strategy Monday to build 500,000 charging stations for electric vehicles across the country and bring down the cost of electric cars with the goal of transforming the U.S. auto industry…“The future of transportation in our nation and around the world is electric,″ Vice President Kamala Harris said at an EV charging facility in suburban Maryland…The $1 trillion infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed last month authorizes a nationwide network of charging stations and sets aside $5 billion for states to build them, including $63 million for Maryland. The law also provides an additional $2.5 billion for local grants to support charging stations in rural areas and in disadvantaged communities…Biden’s $2 trillion social and environmental policy bill, now pending in the Senate, includes a $7,500 tax credit to lower the cost of electric vehicles…The auto industry already is moving toward electric vehicles, Harris added: “We need to make the shift faster and make sure it is driven by the United States.″…Accelerated adoption of electric vehicles for personal cars and commercial fleets would help achieve Biden’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emission by 2050 while creating thousands of jobs, the White House said…The effort also is intended to help the U.S. leapfrog China in the plug-in EV market. Currently, the U.S. market share of plug-in electric vehicle sales is one-third the size of the Chinese EV market…Biden has set a goal that electric cars and trucks account for half of new vehicles sold by 2030…The LMC Automotive consulting firm expects U.S. sales of new fully electric vehicles to hit nearly 400,000 this year, almost double last year’s figure. EVs still make up only about 2.6% of sales, but the firm expects sales to grow to more than 730,000 next year and more than 2 million by 2025…Even at 2 million, EV sales still would be only about 12% of U.S. new vehicle sales.

Italy’s government has decided to ban new passenger cars with combustion engines from 2035 in line with the EU Commission’s plans. For light commercial vehicles, this is to apply from 2040. This has now been decided by the Italian government’s Committee for the Ecological Transition (CITE)…With this, the Draghi government follows a number of European states that want to ban the new sale of vehicles with combustion engines from 2030, 2035 or 2040, including France, the Netherlands, Norway or Great Britain. The committee stressed that the domestic automotive industry has sufficient lead time to prepare for the production changeover…Meanwhile, the Italian government continues to strive for the desired exemption from the combustion engine phase-out from 2035 for domestic sports car manufacturers such as Ferrari and Lamborghini.

“To be involved at this early stage, it’s pretty fantastic,” the 60-year-old president of Neocon International said in a recent interview at the site of the specialty plastics firm he founded 27 years ago…Canada’s automotive factories and parts makers have traditionally been centred in Ontario, with some manufacturing clusters in Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia. For Ryan and a handful of other Atlantic Canadian firms and researchers, the rising tide of the electric vehicle sector appears likely to change historical patterns…Ryan’s firm is making parts for electric vehicles that include the Nissan Ariya and the Cadillac Lyric. Last year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, his engineering staff won bids to fabricate plastic flooring of the Amazon delivery vans to be manufactured by Rivian Automotive…The American electric vehicle maker, which has the backing of Ford and Amazon, is planning to ramp up production of its trucks, vans and SUVs after raising billions on the stock market. The firm plans to build 100,000 electric delivery vans at its factory, a former Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Ill…Across the city from Ryan’s plant, Prof. Jeff Dahn’s battery lab on the third-floor of Dalhousie University’s Georgian-style physics building has been generating patents and has spun off a publicly traded firm…Chris Burns, a graduate from Dahn’s lab, has gone on to found the publicly traded firm Novonix in Halifax, which has expanded from eight employees testing lithium ion batteries and their components into a research centre with about 55 staff members in Halifax and a similar number in the United States…In 2017, Novonix began testing the potential lifespan of synthetic graphite materials as a potential electrode in the batteries, leading to the creation of a division in Chattanooga, Tenn., he said during a recent interview. This division is scaling up mass production of the material – with the goal of hiring 300 workers and producing 150,000 tonnes annually by 2030…“The challenge before us is affordability and longevity We need to make sure the battery will last as long as the vehicle will be in use,” Burns said…Burns said he opted to locate the 28,000 square-metre graphite production plant in Tennessee due to the renewable, low-cost electricity in the state, a large labour force, proximity to manufacturers and suppliers and large incentives from the U.S. government… “Are we actually going to make electric vehicles in Halifax? That’s probably a bit of a stretch,” he said. “But are we going to have a good, robust opportunity to supply the next generation of electric vehicles? Why not?”