Africa could have its first cobalt sulphate refinery by the end of 2025, one of the few outside of China capable of making the product that’s a key component of lithium-ion batteries. Nigeria-based Africa Finance Corp. last week signed an expression of interest to provide $100 million in financing to Kobaloni Energy, backed by mining veteran Mick Davis’ Vision Blue, for the planned facility in Zambia…The project would help diversify a crucial part of the global battery making supply chain away from China, which currently accounts for about 75% of global cobalt refining capacity. Zambia isn’t a major cobalt producer, but its northern neighbor Democratic Republic of Congo mines about two-thirds of the world’s supplies of the metal.

Ford Motor Co. sees low-cost Chinese electric vehicles as a “colossal strategic threat” that will ultimately arrive on US shores, adding to the challenges for an automaker already confronting shaky consumer demand for plug-in cars…“They are ahead of us in this technology,” Marin Gjaja, chief operating officer of Ford’s EV unit, Model e, said Wednesday. “We look at that and say, ‘That’s coming here eventually, so we’d better get fit now and better get going on EVs or we don’t have a future as a company.’” Ford is recalibrating its EV strategy as mainstream US consumers balk at the high price of battery-powered models and the spotty charging infrastructure. Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley revealed last week that Ford is working on low-cost EVs to take on Chinese competition and an affordable model that Tesla Inc. says it has coming. China’s BYD Co. recently surpassed Tesla as the world’s largest EV maker, with low-priced models such as its $11,000 Seagull.

Under pressure from Chinese competitors, Stellantis and Renault are pushing hard to cut electric vehicle costs so they can have similar price tags and profit margins as fossil-fuel models, industry executives said on Thursday…Europe's automakers are trying to develop more affordable EVs, which are more expensive than combustion-engine equivalents, as electric car sales growth has slowed…Along with concerns over a lack of available charging infrastructure, the high cost of EVs has become a significant barrier to broader mass adoption for zero-emission cars…The arrival of lower-cost Chinese EVs has added new impetus to European automakers' ongoing efforts to develop more affordable models…De Meo, speaking after Renault published 2023 results, said reducing prices will be easier for smaller cars because automakers can cut the size of the battery pack - which typically makes up around 40% of an EV's cost - but means prices will remain higher for those with bigger batteries…"Our mission is to reduce costs as quickly as necessary to absorb the additional costs of electrification and sell EVs at the same price as combustion-engine cars because the Chinese know how to do it," Tavares said…Thanks to falling raw material costs for batteries, Tavares said that margins between its electric and fossil-fuel models "are converging" and that he wants to accelerate that process.

Japanese automakers, which have seriously lagged behind the global competition in electric vehicles, are pinning their hopes on solid-state batteries, with many executives predicting that such tech will be a “game changer”. Toyota Motor, the world’s largest automobile group, plans to start selling EVs equipped with solid-state batteries by 2027 or 2028. The company says EVs with these types of batteries will be able to travel around 1,200 kilometres on a charge of less than 10 minutes, about twice the range of vehicles equipped with current lithium-ion batteries…Meanwhile, China — home to a major share of the world’s lithium-ion batteries installed in existing EVs as well as to major electric car manufacturers such as BYD — has unveiled a grand strategy to chase the same technology as Toyota and its peers. Charged-up strategy China’s battery and carmakers have united as part of a government-led drive to build a supply chain for solid-state batteries by 2030, writes Nikkei’s Shunsuke Tabeta. In January, Beijing set up the China All-Solid-State Battery Collaborative Innovation Platform (Casip), a consortium that brings together government, academia and industry, including EV battery rivals CATL and BYD. Casip aims to develop and manufacture solid-state batteries that can compete globally, with Chinese companies as the centre… “We need to be prepared for the risk that all solid-state battery technology could overturn” China’s advantage in automotive batteries, said a Tsinghua University professor specialising in automotive-related technologies during a ceremony marking the consortium’s establishment. Like Microsoft, China also has plans to utilise AI to accelerate the development of next-generation batteries.