China’s demand for electric vehicles has delivered the nation’s homegrown carmakers a seemingly unassailable and irreversible lead over all foreign rivals in the world’s biggest auto market. Led by the likes of BYD Co. and Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd., Chinese firms grabbed more than 50% of total auto sales for the first time in July, according to Bloomberg’s analysis of data from the China Automotive Technology and Research Center…That growth is coming at the expense of legacy German, US and Japanese automakers from Volkswagen AG to Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp…As Chinese buyers increasingly favor local manufacturers, foreign firms are in retreat. South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. is selling production facilities, Ford has cut jobs and Stellantis NV last year shuttered its only Jeep factory in China. Mazda Motor Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer Masahiro Moro earlier this year openly fretted about falling sales and faltering earnings in China…“China is progressing with a scary speed,” Moro said. “Our sales in China, as well as earnings, will suffer.”…The market share of US brands, including the likes of Tesla Inc., Buick, Ford and Chevrolet, has fallen to the lowest level since the data started in 2008. Without EV pioneer Tesla, which opened its Shanghai factory in 2019, the picture would be even worse…While German brands are faring slightly better, cracks are appearing. VW earlier this year lost its mantle of China’s top-selling car brand to BYD — dogged by a lack of electric models — while Mercedes-Benz Group AG has been caught up in a bruising price war…Among the losers, French automakers have seen their popularity collapse in the past decade to the point they are also-rans, with Citroen, Peugeot and Renault all having less than 1% market share.

Israel is expecting a huge jump in electric vehicle use by the end of the decade, when nearly a third of cars will be charged by the power grid rather than using gasoline, the Energy Ministry said on Tuesday…This will add significant stress to the national power grid, accounting for 6% of total demand, and require a tenfold expansion in battery charging capacity, the ministry said…About 1.3 million cars, or 30% of the country's total, will be electric by 2030. That is up from 70,000 today, which is less than 2%, the ministry said in an official forecast. By 2050, the ministry expects all 6 million cars on the road to be electric…The increase is expected despite a hike in taxes on electric cars. The tax rate is due to jump to 35% in 2024 from 20% this year. But that will be offset by lost income from the sale of gasoline, which is taxed 50%.

There’s a taboo in the traditional energy sector against suggesting that demand for the three fossil fuels — oil, gas and coal — could go into permanent decline. Despite recurring talk of peak oil and peak coal over the years, both fuels are hitting all-time highs, making it easier to push back against any assertions that they could soon be on the wane. But according to new projections from the International Energy Agency, this age of seemingly relentless growth is set to come to an end this decade, bringing with it significant implications for the global energy sector and the fight against climate change…Based only on today’s policy settings by governments worldwide — even without any new climate policies — demand for each of the three fossil fuels is set to hit a peak in the coming years. This is the first time that a peak in demand is visible for each fuel this decade — earlier than many people anticipated…They are primarily driven by the spectacular growth of clean energy technologies such as solar panels and electric vehicles, the structural shifts in China’s economy and the ramifications of the global energy crisis…Some pundits suggested global oil demand might have peaked after it plunged during the pandemic. The IEA was wary of such premature calls, but our latest projections show that the growth of electric vehicles around the world, especially in China, means oil demand is on course to peak before 2030. Electric buses and two- and three-wheelers are also growing strongly, especially in emerging economies, further eating into demand. The “Golden Age of Gas”, which we called in 2011, is nearing an end, with demand in advanced economies set to fall away later this decade. This is the result of renewables increasingly outmatching gas for producing electricity, the rise of heat pumps and Europe’s accelerated shift away from gas following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine…For starters, the projected declines in demand we see based on today’s policy settings are nowhere near steep enough to put the world on a path to limiting global warming to 1.5C. That will require significantly stronger and faster policy action by governments. 

A state governor in Mexico said on Monday that Tesla and its suppliers would invest $15 billion over the next two years in a factory that is still under construction, an amount that is triple what Mexican officials previously announced…In March, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company would open a gigafactory in northern Nuevo Leon state, part of the electric carmaker's push to expand its global footprint…Prior to Tesla's announcement earlier this year, major global automakers BMW, General Motors and Ford had all announced plans to begin or step up electric vehicle production in Mexico's massive automaking sector as the industry transitions away from cars powered by fossil fuels.

The expansion of industrial-scale cobalt and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has led to the forced eviction of entire communities and grievous human rights abuses including sexual assault, arson and beatings…In a report, Powering Change or Business as Usual?, Amnesty International and the DRC-based organisation Initiative pour la Bonne Gouvernance et les Droits Humains (IBGDH), detail how the scramble by multinational companies to expand mining operations has resulted in communities being forced from their homes and farmland …Growing demand for so-called clean energy technologies has created a corresponding demand for certain metals, including copper, and cobalt, which is essential for making most lithium-ion batteries. These are used to power a wide range of devices including electric cars and mobile phones. The DRC has the world’s largest reserves of cobalt, and the seventh largest reserves of copper…The average electric vehicle battery requires more than 13kg of cobalt, and a mobile phone battery about 7g. Demand for cobalt is expected to reach 222,000 tonnes by 2025, having tripled since 2010…In the heart of the city of Kolwezi long-established communities have been destroyed since a vast open-pit copper and cobalt mine was reopened in 2015…The project is operated by Compagnie Minière de Musonoie Global SAS (COMMUS), a joint venture between Zijin Mining Group Ltd, a Chinese company, and Générale des Carrières et des Mines SA (Gécamines), the DRC state mining company… Near the site of the Mutoshi project, run by Chemicals of Africa SA (Chemaf), a subsidiary of Chemaf Resources Ltd., which is headquartered in Dubai, interviewees described how soldiers burned down a settlement called Mukumbi…Near Kolwezi, a subsidiary of Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), which is headquartered in Luxembourg and whose largest shareholder is the government of Kazakhstan, runs the Metalkol Roan Tailings Reclamation (RTR) project…Twenty-one farmers, part of a collective growing crops on the fringes of the concession near the village of Tshamundenda, said that in February 2020, without any meaningful consultation or notice of eviction, a detachment of soldiers, some with dogs, occupied the area while the fields they had tended were bulldozed… The report urges the DRC authorities to immediately end forced evictions, instigate an impartial commission of inquiry, and strengthen and enforce national laws related to mining and evictions in line with international human rights standards…The authorities have carried out or facilitated forced evictions and failed in their obligation to protect people’s rights, including those enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The military must never be involved in evictions.