E-car Sales Collapse

[notsonice + 1,068]

6 hours ago, Ecocharger said:

Jay, you have forgotten the big picture again. That is only 17% of NEW market share, probably less than 5% of overall vehicle market share, and less than 1% of the transportation market share.

For someone with tunnel vision, you are even outdoing your usual performance.

29 million light vehicles and trucks in California....

 

1.6 million new Hybrids/Plugins/EVS registered in California in the last 5 years....2023....est 600,000 new registrations

over 6 percent at the end of 2022....over 8 percent 2023.......estimate for 2030 ....over 25 percent with  over 8 million Hybrids/Plugins/EVS on the road in California

not less than your 1 percent BS babble........

Rome was not built in a day......

 

 

 

Enjoy the transition

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by notsonice

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,131]

On 2/8/2023 at 1:16 AM, Rob Plant said:

Sorry but the only thing dampening down EV/hybrid sales in Europe is lack of supply and having to wait over 12 months for a vehicle.

Let us know when someone in Europe/USA gets their heads out of their asses and demands the refining processing for the raw battery materials to be done in the EU/USA, then and ONLY then will we know they are being serious and not epic hypocrites.  Until then, this is nothing but a cult clown show pretending they are "saving the planet" like the idiots on sailboats made from 100% plastic with 3 solar panels out the back camped out in the semi-tropics and then preach to everyone up north where the food is grown that they are eating of course, waving their finger at them telling them how evil they are for using diesel fuel going to work everyday producing all the products those camped out boaters use on the daily. 

PS: EDIT: Everyone wants the proclaimed advantages of EV's, less maintenance, can charge at home, possibly longer life expectancy(depends on battery type used).. the problem is the reality and here I'll bet every penny I own that only in these early models will we get batteries with long durability as the car manufacutrers will all quickly realize if they sell cars which can go 1Mkm... they will quickly all be out of business which is the EXACT same reason ICE cars do not go that far right now even though, for well over 50 years we have had the capability for ALL ICE cars to have a life of 1Mkm.  Sure, I have an electric bike I made.  Works great around my small town.  The long range models of EV's actually are viable now for those living in dense cities etc who do not do road tripping or who can afford a 2nd car where the 2nd car is an ICE.  I know of NO ONE who has ONLY an EV as their main mode of transportation.  Though I do live rural.  Someone living sniffing nose to farting ass in a city who takes the bus to work everyday?  Sure, an EV would be just fine. 

Edited February 10, 2023 by footeab@yahoo.com

[Rob Plant + 2,610]

8 hours ago, markslawson said:

Rob - I'm well aware of the problems with sourcing battery components. But you're basing your comments on anecdotal evidence. Where are you and where do you work that it takes so long to deliver EVs? Again, and we keep on going over this same ground, its time to absorb the point, sure there have been increases in demand. Everyone's been talking about these things, and there are subsidies/advantages, particularly in Europe, in buying these things. Enthusiasts have kidded themselves into believing it helps the environment. But the sales still count as just a portion of the petrol car market. No, EVs have no natural advantage. They have the range and recharge issues, and once you take into account resales value and battery replacement the supposed cost advantage vanishes.     

Mark with respect I think your points would have been valid 5-6 years ago but not now as far as the UK is concerned anyway. I live here (central England not London) there are EV's everywhere, charging infrastructure everywhere, yes there are still advantages from a tax point of view but those will be diminishing very soon (apparently) and in fact many of the grants listed in your table have already gone and now dont exist at all as your table is 3 years old. As far as congestion charges go in London and Birmingham, is that a bad thing that EV's are exempt as they dont kick out harmful emissions that lead to Asthma and other bresthing disorders particularly amongst children? is it the way forward to have ever increasing pollution in these very urbanised areas? There are 9 million people living in London nearly half the population of OZ I dont think you appreciate the very poor quality of air to breathe if we remained with just ICE vehicles.

To say this "Enthusiasts have kidded themselves into believing it helps the environment." frankly shows a lack of understanding of the pollution in major cities, I'm presuming youre coming from the angle of Co2 and I actually agree that isnt a pollutant but ICE vehicles also kick out many other toxic chemicals, see below.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/emissions/vehicle-exhaust-emissions-what-comes-out-of-your-cars-exhaust/

Yes there are issues in making batteries and it make take 3-4 years of driving to become carbon neutral after REE is considered etc. Most people keep a vehicle for a lot longer than 3-4 years!

Edited February 10, 2023 by Rob Plant

[Rob Plant + 2,610]

8 hours ago, markslawson said:

Okay, lets look at this story. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Its a couple of years old, but nothing much as changed.

When Julie Hoang needed to upgrade the family's ageing diesel car, she didn't at first consider buying an electric vehicle (EV).

Then she saw the subsidies, and pretty soon she was swanning around in a sleek white electric Peugeot.

"I definitely wouldn't have bought one without the subsidies," she says.

The four-door hatchback would have cost an eye-watering $50,000, but the government gave her an $11,000 rebate.

On top of this, it bought back her diesel clunker for about $5,000.

"That's a higher value than what it's worth," Julie said.

All up, the subsidy and buy-back reduced the cost of the car to $34,000; more expensive than a diesel model, but not by too much.

The catch? (And sorry to get your hopes up).

Julie lives in France.

 Governments around the world are offering juicy purchase incentives to speed car ownership to EVs — and it appears to be working.

EVs made up 22 per cent of new car sales in France in September 2021.

 

Demand for EVs is created by subsidies and incentives. Take those away and no sales.. a point shonw time and again. Now that is it. I've wasted enough time on this point. 

The problem with all that as you have stated is that the story is old!

France extends EV incentives until July 2022

https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/france-extends-ev-incentives-until-july-2022

Looks like that finished middle of last year!

The real reason Macron did this in the first place (which was the most generous EV scheme in Europe) was 2 fold, firstly to appease the increase in duty he imposed on diesel and secondly to give a massive boost to the failing French auto industry, both of these because an election is round the corner!!

there is no point posting stuff that is 3-5 years old as its totally out of date now and gives a false narrative.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Rob Plant

[Rob Plant + 2,610]

1 hour ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Let us know when someone in Europe/USA gets their heads out of their asses and demands the refining processing for the raw battery materials to be done in the EU/USA, then and ONLY then will we know they are being serious and not epic hypocrites.  Until then, this is nothing but a cult clown show pretending they are "saving the planet" like the idiots on sailboats made from 100% plastic with 3 solar panels out the back camped out in the semi-tropics and then preach to everyone up north where the food is grown that they are eating of course, waving their finger at them telling them how evil they are for using diesel fuel going to work everyday producing all the products those camped out boaters use on the daily. 

PS: EDIT: Everyone wants the proclaimed advantages of EV's, less maintenance, can charge at home, possibly longer life expectancy(depends on battery type used).. the problem is the reality and here I'll bet every penny I own that only in these early models will we get batteries with long durability as the car manufacutrers will all quickly realize if they sell cars which can go 1Mkm... they will quickly all be out of business which is the EXACT same reason ICE cars do not go that far right now even though, for well over 50 years we have had the capability for ALL ICE cars to have a life of 1Mkm.  Sure, I have an electric bike I made.  Works great around my small town.  The long range models of EV's actually are viable now for those living in dense cities etc who do not do road tripping or who can afford a 2nd car where the 2nd car is an ICE.  I know of NO ONE who has ONLY an EV as their main mode of transportation.  Though I do live rural.  Someone living sniffing nose to farting ass in a city who takes the bus to work everyday?  Sure, an EV would be just fine. 

Yeah thats why the EV sales and hybrid sales are rocketing WITHOUT the US making the batteries.

No American company is in the top 10

https://mycarvoice.com/news/who-makes-electric-car-batteries/?utm_content=cmp-true

However to answer your point there are these already in Europe, do you own research for N.America.

https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/11/15/2556148/28124/en/Europe-EV-Battery-Market-Report-to-2029-Players-Include-Northvolt-Lithium-Werks-Faradion-and-BMZ-Group.html#:~:text=The key players operating in,Johnson Matthey Plc (U.K.).

By the way Britishvolt (which was a disater waiting to happen) looks like being taken over by OZ company Recharge Industries.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/reaction-northumberland-gigafactory-project-secures-26173124

[Ecocharger + 1,375]

13 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Mark, I said "And then the sales climb back up to the same level and they cut more subsidies"

You said "never known it to work like that"

I then provided you with direct evidence of the UK repeatedly reducing subsidies with demand again accelerating afterward.

You stand corrected.

You have to look at all subsidies, not just immediate incentives.

[Ecocharger + 1,375]

13 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Yes and then the sales climb to even higher levels. It is very effective.

Sales climb again with another subsidy program in another form....or another major disincentive program for ICE fossil fuel vehicles. You are again the victim of tunnel vision, old boy.

[Ecocharger + 1,375]

12 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

And the number just keeps going up. 

They keep going up below 1%, that is some transition, Jay.

Don't hold your breath with that rate of advance, you will turn blue below the 1% mark.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Ecocharger

[Jay McKinsey + 1,489]

1 hour ago, Ecocharger said:

You have to look at all subsidies, not just immediate incentives.

The UK has not added any new subsidies only removed them.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,489]

9 hours ago, Ecocharger said:

Sales climb again with another subsidy program in another form....or another major disincentive program for ICE fossil fuel vehicles. You are again the victim of tunnel vision, old boy.

The UK did not add new subsidies after old ones were removed yet sales keep going up.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Jay McKinsey

[NickW + 2,714]

21 hours ago, markslawson said:

Again I must burst your bubble. Sure they ended some subsidies but EVs have massive government mandated advantages.. in the UK. Look at the table in the article I linked near the end. EVs are exempt from London's congestion tax - oh wow! no wonder sales are booming, that alone would be enough to guarantee sales. The other concessions are really juicy too. Subsidsies aren't needed. Its no surprise they were ended. And you can fully write off the price of an EV on corporate tax.. they'll be knocking down the gates of the EV show rooms. Sorry Jay, but your counter example is no example at all but thanks for the response. I learn a lot from these things.   

I partly agree. If you can get your employer to sign up to the scheme you can lease a brand new BEV and pay  salary sacrifice. If you are a top rate tax payer thats a 40% saving. All you pay on the vehicle is the 2% BIK tax.

My wife is pushing for this scheme at work currently😄

[Jay McKinsey + 1,489]

15 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

The problem with all that as you have stated is that the story is old!

France extends EV incentives until July 2022

https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/france-extends-ev-incentives-until-july-2022

Looks like that finished middle of last year!

The real reason Macron did this in the first place (which was the most generous EV scheme in Europe) was 2 fold, firstly to appease the increase in duty he imposed on diesel and secondly to give a massive boost to the failing French auto industry, both of these because an election is round the corner!!

there is no point posting stuff that is 3-5 years old as its totally out of date now and gives a false narrative.

Mark only uses old data.

[Ecocharger + 1,375]

9 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

The UK did not add new subsidies after old ones were removed yet sales keep going up.

If you add disincentives to alternative products, that is the same as adding an incentive to the product.

[Ecocharger + 1,375]

1 hour ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Mark only uses old data.

You only use tunnel vision.

[Mr Smee + 13]

On 2/10/2023 at 8:51 AM, Rob Plant said:

Mark with respect I think your points would have been valid 5-6 years ago but not now as far as the UK is concerned anyway. I live here (central England not London) there are EV's everywhere, charging infrastructure everywhere, yes there are still advantages from a tax point of view but those will be diminishing very soon (apparently) and in fact many of the grants listed in your table have already gone and now dont exist at all as your table is 3 years old. As far as congestion charges go in London and Birmingham, is that a bad thing that EV's are exempt as they dont kick out harmful emissions that lead to Asthma and other bresthing disorders particularly amongst children? is it the way forward to have ever increasing pollution in these very urbanised areas? There are 9 million people living in London nearly half the population of OZ I dont think you appreciate the very poor quality of air to breathe if we remained with just ICE vehicles.

To say this "Enthusiasts have kidded themselves into believing it helps the environment." frankly shows a lack of understanding of the pollution in major cities, I'm presuming youre coming from the angle of Co2 and I actually agree that isnt a pollutant but ICE vehicles also kick out many other toxic chemicals, see below.

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/emissions/vehicle-exhaust-emissions-what-comes-out-of-your-cars-exhaust/

Yes there are issues in making batteries and it make take 3-4 years of driving to become carbon neutral after REE is considered etc. Most people keep a vehicle for a lot longer than 3-4 years!

The charging infrastructure in the UK is appalling. With 33% of housing being terraced EV and hybrid sales for these households must be nigh on zero, and then god knows how they’ll sort that shit out. 
When they end ICE sales in 2035 watch a huge spike in these sales 2-3 years before that end date. 
 

[Rob Plant + 2,610]

On 2/12/2023 at 7:28 AM, Mr Smee said:

The charging infrastructure in the UK is appalling. With 33% of housing being terraced EV and hybrid sales for these households must be nigh on zero, and then god knows how they’ll sort that shit out. 
When they end ICE sales in 2035 watch a huge spike in these sales 2-3 years before that end date. 
 

Most places of work have charging, shopping centres have charging, service stations have charging, car parks have charging, even lamp posts can be charging points.

"and then god knows how they’ll sort that shit out." Easy see below!

Terraced housing you park in the street, oh and then plug your car in to a lamp post, its not rocket science.

You are way behind the times.

https://ubitricity.com/en/

Edited February 13, 2023 by Rob Plant

[TailingsPond + 468]

On 2/10/2023 at 7:30 PM, Ecocharger said:

If you add disincentives to alternative products, that is the same as adding an incentive to the product.

Not really.  In behaviour conditioning you can have negative and positive punishments and negative and positive rewards.  The conditioning response is very different.

I can take something you enjoy from you (negative punishment).

I could hit you ("positive punishment", as in it added something annoying).

I could give you a treat (positive reward).

I could remove a burden ("no chores this week" negative reward).

 

[Mr Smee + 13]

On 2/13/2023 at 9:02 AM, Rob Plant said:

Most places of work have charging, shopping centres have charging, service stations have charging, car parks have charging, even lamp posts can be charging points.

"and then god knows how they’ll sort that shit out." Easy see below!

Terraced housing you park in the street, oh and then plug your car in to a lamp post, its not rocket science.

You are way behind the times.

https://ubitricity.com/en/

Oh the old plug your car into the lamp post. How would you charge say 20 cars on 4 lamp posts. Remember on a terrace street most people have 1 or 2 cars per household. 
Wires everywhere (nice claim if you trip over them), not enough amps carried to the lamp posts to charge more than one car at a time. The upgrades to achieve charging for terrace housing aren’t commercially viable for councils. 
My hybrid is easy to charge as a live in a semi, if I lived in a terrace I have no idea how I would charge as I work from home. 

[Rob Plant + 2,610]

32 minutes ago, Mr Smee said:

Oh the old plug your car into the lamp post. How would you charge say 20 cars on 4 lamp posts. Remember on a terrace street most people have 1 or 2 cars per household. 
Wires everywhere (nice claim if you trip over them), not enough amps carried to the lamp posts to charge more than one car at a time. The upgrades to achieve charging for terrace housing aren’t commercially viable for councils. 
My hybrid is easy to charge as a live in a semi, if I lived in a terrace I have no idea how I would charge as I work from home. 

How about plug it in when you go shopping? Jeez all you seem to do is find problems instead of solutions! 

Wires everywhere???? are you blind?? lamp posts are no more than 1 foot away from the kerb and dont intefere with the pavement/footpath! If you have to use an extension then the cable can go through one of these to prevent it being a trip hazard.

https://www.theramppeople.co.uk/cable-protectors?msclkid=9f3aa2717b5f10fa192fc19a13e9fd3e&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=CP - PPC_Cable Protectors_2016&utm_term=cable covers&utm_content=outdoor cable cover

You couldnt fit 2 cars per household on the average terraced street so thats a nonsense. If you arent a dick you can share charging points with neighbours, alternatively buy a bloody extension lead which is the bleeding obvious thing to do! https://evking.co.uk/ev-charging-blog/can-i-extend-my-ev-charging-cable/#:~:text=Yes%2C you can extend an EV cable using,equal to or higher than your EV charger.

There are literally charging points everywhere these days and your car even tells you where the nearest one is

Again you see only problems where numerous solutions already exist if you only opened your eyes or could be bothered to research the solutions! Your statement of "and then god knows how they’ll sort that shit out." makes you look pretty silly frankly.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,489]

On 2/10/2023 at 6:30 PM, Ecocharger said:

If you add disincentives to alternative products, that is the same as adding an incentive to the product.

Another claim without evidence. What disincentives did they add?

Edited February 15, 2023 by Jay McKinsey

[El Gato + 251]

How 'modern-day slavery' in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara

 

Smartphones, computers and electric vehicles may be emblems of the modern world, but, says Siddharth Kara, their rechargeable batteries are frequently powered by cobalt mined by workers laboring in slave-like conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kara, a fellow at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Kennedy School, has been researching modern-day slavery, human trafficking and child labor for two decades. He says that although the DRC has more cobalt reserves than the rest of the planet combined, there's no such thing as a "clean" supply chain of cobalt from the country. In his new book, Cobalt Red, Kara writes that much of the DRC's cobalt is being extracted by so-called "artisanal" miners — freelance workers who do extremely dangerous labor for the equivalent of just a few dollars a day.

"You have to imagine walking around some of these mining areas and dialing back our clock centuries," Kara says. "People are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain."

 

 

Kara says the mining industry has ravaged the landscape of the DRC. Millions of trees have been cut down, the air around mines is hazy with dust and grit, and the water has been contaminated with toxic effluents from the mining processing. What's more, he says, "Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe — and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust."

National

In Idaho, America's first, and only, cobalt mine in decades is opening

Cobalt is used in the manufacture of almost all lithium ion rechargeable batteries used in the world today. And while those outside of the DRC differentiate between cobalt extracted by the country's high-tech industrial mining companies and that which was dug by artisanal miners, Kara says the two are fundamentally intertwined.

"There's complete cross-contamination between industrial excavator-derived cobalt and cobalt dug by women and children with their bare hands," he says. "Industrial mines, almost all of them, have artisanal miners working, digging in and around them, feeding cobalt into the formal supply chain."

Kara acknowledges the important role cobalt plays in tech devices and in the transition to sustainable energy sources. Rather than renouncing cobalt entirely, he says people should focus on fixing the supply chain.

 

"We shouldn't be transitioning to the use of electric vehicles at the cost of the people and environment of one of the most downtrodden and impoverished corners of the world," he says. "The bottom of the supply chain, where almost all the world's cobalt is coming from, is a horror show."

---

 

Some 20,000 people work at Shabara artisanal mine in the DRC, in shifts of 5,000 at a time. The DRC produced approximately 74% of the world's cobalt in 2021.

Junior Kannah /AFP via Getty Images

Interview Highlights

On how "artisanal" cobalt mines continue to operate in the DRC — despite being illegal

Technically, under the law, there should not be artisanal mining taking place in any industrial mine. And yet, lo and behold, at most of the industrial mines, there is some artisanal mining taking place. In some cases, predominantly artisanal mining is taking place. And the reason is, it's a penny-wage way to boost production. I mean, imagine you're in a part of the world where there are millions of people who barely get a dollar or two a day who are grindingly poor and will accept almost any labor arrangement just to survive. Well, you put them in a tight pit, cram them with 10,000 other people and pay them a couple of dollars, and they'll produce thousands of tons of cobalt per year for almost no wages. And so that's not legal, but it's happening.

On why these conditions are on par with slavery

Imagine an entire population of people who cannot survive without scrounging in hazardous conditions for a dollar or two a day. There is no alternative there. The mines have taken over everything.

Siddharth Kara

Imagine an entire population of people who cannot survive without scrounging in hazardous conditions for a dollar or two a day. There is no alternative there. The mines have taken over everything. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced because their villages were just bulldozed over to make place for large mining concessions. So you have people with no alternative, no other source of income, no livelihood. Now, add to that the menace in many cases of armed forces pressuring people to dig, parents having to make a painful decision, 'Do I send my child to school or do we eat today?' And if they choose the latter, that means bringing all their kids into these toxic pits to dig just to earn that extra fifty cents or a dollar a day, that could mean the difference between eating or not. So in the 21st century, this is modern-day slavery. It's not chattel slavery from the 18th century where you can buy and trade people and own title over a person like property. But the level of degradation, the level of exploitation is on par with old-world slavery.

 

An artisanal miner holds a cobalt stone at the Shabara artisanal mine in the DRC.

Junior Kahhah/AFP via Getty Images

On the danger of collapse in artisanal mines

Imagine a mountain of gravel and stone just avalanching down on people, crushing legs and arms, spines. I met people whose legs had been amputated, who had metal bars in where their legs used to be.

Siddharth Kara

I spoke with many families whose children, husbands, spouses, had suffered horrific injuries. Oftentimes, digging in these larger open-air pits, there are pit wall collapses. Imagine a mountain of gravel and stone just avalanching down on people, crushing legs and arms, spines. I met people whose legs had been amputated, who had metal bars in where their legs used to be. And then the worst of all is what happens in tunnel digging. There are probably 10,000 to 15,000 tunnels that are dug by hand by artisanal miners. None of them have supports, ventilation shafts, rock bolts, anything like that. And these tunnels collapse all the time, burying alive everyone who is down there, including children. It's a demise that is almost impossibly horrific to imagine. And yet I met mothers pounding their chests in grief, talking about their children who had been buried alive in a tunnel collapse. And these stories never get out of the Congo. People just don't know what's happening down there.

 

On the trafficking of children to work in the mines

 

 

MacMillan

There's money to be made in every corner and every direction. And you've got these militias. Sometimes they're called commandos and they will abduct children, traffic children, recruit children from even other parts of the Congo. I met children who had come from hundreds of miles away and have been brought through militia networks down into the copper cobalt mines to dig. And as they dig and earn their dollar or two, that's what funds these militia groups. So children are the most heavily exploited of all the people down there. They're the most vulnerable and oftentimes trafficked and exploited in some cases in very violent circumstances.

On government corruption preventing change

Corruption is a big part of the problem. That's what allows so much of this abuse to persist. And the thing is, imagine the Congo. It's a war-torn, deeply impoverished nation that has been subjected to generations of pillage and ransacking going all the way back, now centuries, to the slave trade. And so when big foreign stakeholders come waving around large sums of money, it's not a long stretch of the imagination to see that there would be corruption. ...

World

Belgium returned a single tooth to the Congo this week. Here's why

The first democratically elected president of the Congo [in 1960], Patrice Lumumba, made a pledge that the country's immense mineral riches and resources would be used for the benefit of the people who live there. And in short order, within six months, he had been deposed, assassinated, chopped to pieces, dissolved in acid and replaced with a bloody dictator, a corrupt dictator who would keep the minerals flowing in the right direction. So if you don't play ball with the power brokers at the top of the chain and with the Global North, Patrice Lumumba showed what's the outcome, what will happen. And I think that's also a part of this lesson that we need to understand historically, when we talk about things like corruption.

 

On how China came to own most of the industrial mines in the Congo

China cornered the global cobalt market before anyone knew what was happening. It goes back to the year 2009 under the previous president in the Congo, Joseph Kabila. He signed a deal with the Chinese government for access to mining concessions in exchange for development assistance, a commitment to build roads and some public health clinics, schools, hospitals, things like that — and that opened the door. Before anyone knew what happened, Chinese companies had seized ownership of 15 of the 19 primary industrial copper-cobalt mining concessions down there. So they dominate mining excavation on the ground. And not just that, they dominate the chain all the way through to the battery level. They have about 70, 80% of the refined cobalt market and probably half of the battery market.

 

Siddharth Kara's previous book Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, won the 2010 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, awarded for the best book written in English on slavery or abolition.

Lynn Savarese/MacMillan

On witnessing suffering and trauma

There are some incidents that are just so burned into me that they'll come at me just like a terror, and it's hard. I just hope I've done justice to those stories and to the people who shared their tragedies with me, courageously shared these tragedies with me. I just want their voices [to] reach the world and then the world will decide what to do with the truth and the testimonies of the Congolese people. But if I've done some justice to bringing those voices out into the world that can scarcely function without the suffering of the Congolese people, then it's all worth it. Even the nightmares and the terrors, it's all worth it.

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,539]

On 2/13/2023 at 1:02 AM, Rob Plant said:

Terraced housing you park in the street, oh and then plug your car in to a lamp post, its not rocket science.

You are way behind the times.

Mr. Plant...may I inquire as to what mfg supplies your light posts. I fully intend to go quite long in such well thought out strategy...Ahh while we're at...extension cords...those curly types....Your thoughts on trendy colors would be very much appreciated...There seems to be a very bright future in the makings.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Eyes Wide Open

[Rob Plant + 2,610]

8 hours ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Mr. Plant...may I inquire as to what mfg supplies your light posts. I fully intend to go quite long in such well thought out strategy...Ahh while we're at...extension cords...those curly types....Your thoughts on trendy colors would be very much appreciated...There seems to be a very bright future in the makings.

EWO I have no idea what your post is getting at (maybe a lamp post). Local coucils are fitting the sockets for the charging.

Maybe your best colour is pink?

There is absolutely no reason why this cant be done and its actually happening in many parts of London right now.

Its not MY strategy by the way! I was just explaing to Mr.Smee (old Luddite that he must be) that there are ways and means of charging an EV safely if you live in a terraced house, the fact he hasnt replied makes me think I have made that point.

29% of houses in the UK are terraced (row houses), I would imagine that number in the US is miniscule.

Oh and call me Rob, no need to be so formal 😉

Edited February 17, 2023 by Rob Plant

[El Gato + 251]

22 hours ago, El Gato said:

How 'modern-day slavery' in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara

 

Smartphones, computers and electric vehicles may be emblems of the modern world, but, says Siddharth Kara, their rechargeable batteries are frequently powered by cobalt mined by workers laboring in slave-like conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kara, a fellow at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Kennedy School, has been researching modern-day slavery, human trafficking and child labor for two decades. He says that although the DRC has more cobalt reserves than the rest of the planet combined, there's no such thing as a "clean" supply chain of cobalt from the country. In his new book, Cobalt Red, Kara writes that much of the DRC's cobalt is being extracted by so-called "artisanal" miners — freelance workers who do extremely dangerous labor for the equivalent of just a few dollars a day.

"You have to imagine walking around some of these mining areas and dialing back our clock centuries," Kara says. "People are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain."

 

 

Kara says the mining industry has ravaged the landscape of the DRC. Millions of trees have been cut down, the air around mines is hazy with dust and grit, and the water has been contaminated with toxic effluents from the mining processing. What's more, he says, "Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe — and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust."

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Cobalt is used in the manufacture of almost all lithium ion rechargeable batteries used in the world today. And while those outside of the DRC differentiate between cobalt extracted by the country's high-tech industrial mining companies and that which was dug by artisanal miners, Kara says the two are fundamentally intertwined.

"There's complete cross-contamination between industrial excavator-derived cobalt and cobalt dug by women and children with their bare hands," he says. "Industrial mines, almost all of them, have artisanal miners working, digging in and around them, feeding cobalt into the formal supply chain."

Kara acknowledges the important role cobalt plays in tech devices and in the transition to sustainable energy sources. Rather than renouncing cobalt entirely, he says people should focus on fixing the supply chain.

 

"We shouldn't be transitioning to the use of electric vehicles at the cost of the people and environment of one of the most downtrodden and impoverished corners of the world," he says. "The bottom of the supply chain, where almost all the world's cobalt is coming from, is a horror show."

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Some 20,000 people work at Shabara artisanal mine in the DRC, in shifts of 5,000 at a time. The DRC produced approximately 74% of the world's cobalt in 2021.

Junior Kannah /AFP via Getty Images

Interview Highlights

On how "artisanal" cobalt mines continue to operate in the DRC — despite being illegal

Technically, under the law, there should not be artisanal mining taking place in any industrial mine. And yet, lo and behold, at most of the industrial mines, there is some artisanal mining taking place. In some cases, predominantly artisanal mining is taking place. And the reason is, it's a penny-wage way to boost production. I mean, imagine you're in a part of the world where there are millions of people who barely get a dollar or two a day who are grindingly poor and will accept almost any labor arrangement just to survive. Well, you put them in a tight pit, cram them with 10,000 other people and pay them a couple of dollars, and they'll produce thousands of tons of cobalt per year for almost no wages. And so that's not legal, but it's happening.

On why these conditions are on par with slavery

Imagine an entire population of people who cannot survive without scrounging in hazardous conditions for a dollar or two a day. There is no alternative there. The mines have taken over everything.

Siddharth Kara

Imagine an entire population of people who cannot survive without scrounging in hazardous conditions for a dollar or two a day. There is no alternative there. The mines have taken over everything. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced because their villages were just bulldozed over to make place for large mining concessions. So you have people with no alternative, no other source of income, no livelihood. Now, add to that the menace in many cases of armed forces pressuring people to dig, parents having to make a painful decision, 'Do I send my child to school or do we eat today?' And if they choose the latter, that means bringing all their kids into these toxic pits to dig just to earn that extra fifty cents or a dollar a day, that could mean the difference between eating or not. So in the 21st century, this is modern-day slavery. It's not chattel slavery from the 18th century where you can buy and trade people and own title over a person like property. But the level of degradation, the level of exploitation is on par with old-world slavery.

 

An artisanal miner holds a cobalt stone at the Shabara artisanal mine in the DRC.

Junior Kahhah/AFP via Getty Images

On the danger of collapse in artisanal mines

Imagine a mountain of gravel and stone just avalanching down on people, crushing legs and arms, spines. I met people whose legs had been amputated, who had metal bars in where their legs used to be.

Siddharth Kara

I spoke with many families whose children, husbands, spouses, had suffered horrific injuries. Oftentimes, digging in these larger open-air pits, there are pit wall collapses. Imagine a mountain of gravel and stone just avalanching down on people, crushing legs and arms, spines. I met people whose legs had been amputated, who had metal bars in where their legs used to be. And then the worst of all is what happens in tunnel digging. There are probably 10,000 to 15,000 tunnels that are dug by hand by artisanal miners. None of them have supports, ventilation shafts, rock bolts, anything like that. And these tunnels collapse all the time, burying alive everyone who is down there, including children. It's a demise that is almost impossibly horrific to imagine. And yet I met mothers pounding their chests in grief, talking about their children who had been buried alive in a tunnel collapse. And these stories never get out of the Congo. People just don't know what's happening down there.

 

On the trafficking of children to work in the mines

 

 

MacMillan

There's money to be made in every corner and every direction. And you've got these militias. Sometimes they're called commandos and they will abduct children, traffic children, recruit children from even other parts of the Congo. I met children who had come from hundreds of miles away and have been brought through militia networks down into the copper cobalt mines to dig. And as they dig and earn their dollar or two, that's what funds these militia groups. So children are the most heavily exploited of all the people down there. They're the most vulnerable and oftentimes trafficked and exploited in some cases in very violent circumstances.

On government corruption preventing change

Corruption is a big part of the problem. That's what allows so much of this abuse to persist. And the thing is, imagine the Congo. It's a war-torn, deeply impoverished nation that has been subjected to generations of pillage and ransacking going all the way back, now centuries, to the slave trade. And so when big foreign stakeholders come waving around large sums of money, it's not a long stretch of the imagination to see that there would be corruption. ...

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The first democratically elected president of the Congo [in 1960], Patrice Lumumba, made a pledge that the country's immense mineral riches and resources would be used for the benefit of the people who live there. And in short order, within six months, he had been deposed, assassinated, chopped to pieces, dissolved in acid and replaced with a bloody dictator, a corrupt dictator who would keep the minerals flowing in the right direction. So if you don't play ball with the power brokers at the top of the chain and with the Global North, Patrice Lumumba showed what's the outcome, what will happen. And I think that's also a part of this lesson that we need to understand historically, when we talk about things like corruption.

 

On how China came to own most of the industrial mines in the Congo

China cornered the global cobalt market before anyone knew what was happening. It goes back to the year 2009 under the previous president in the Congo, Joseph Kabila. He signed a deal with the Chinese government for access to mining concessions in exchange for development assistance, a commitment to build roads and some public health clinics, schools, hospitals, things like that — and that opened the door. Before anyone knew what happened, Chinese companies had seized ownership of 15 of the 19 primary industrial copper-cobalt mining concessions down there. So they dominate mining excavation on the ground. And not just that, they dominate the chain all the way through to the battery level. They have about 70, 80% of the refined cobalt market and probably half of the battery market.

 

Siddharth Kara's previous book Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, won the 2010 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, awarded for the best book written in English on slavery or abolition.

Lynn Savarese/MacMillan

On witnessing suffering and trauma

There are some incidents that are just so burned into me that they'll come at me just like a terror, and it's hard. I just hope I've done justice to those stories and to the people who shared their tragedies with me, courageously shared these tragedies with me. I just want their voices [to] reach the world and then the world will decide what to do with the truth and the testimonies of the Congolese people. But if I've done some justice to bringing those voices out into the world that can scarcely function without the suffering of the Congolese people, then it's all worth it. Even the nightmares and the terrors, it's all worth it.

The lack of replies from the Green energy types is very Damning here. Think of those Kids working in those pits the next time you drive your EV down the road

[notsonice + 1,068]

5 minutes ago, El Gato said:

The lack of replies from the Green energy types is very Damning here. Think of those Kids working in those pits the next time you drive your EV down the road

all the EV makers have switched to LFP batteries which do no use Cobalt.........

Try to stay current...

 

Stay in school Junior ......you might learn something