Rare Earth Elements and Electric Vehicles

Neodymium is the material, and the bulk of it is produced in China. According to reports, China looks set to limit its global export volumes of this metal so as to retain sufficient for its national industries. The problem is that it can't really be won from other nations as it is scarce outside China. So several things may happen:

• The global market price for neodymium will rise
• China looks set to benefit from increased value from its electric and hybrid vehicles industry
• China looks like it will benefit from reducing carbon emissions as its vehicle fleet switches to hybrid and electric vehicle technology.
• Nations exporting vehicles to China will see a drop in orders.

It looks like China is holding most of the trumps in this game.

Dear friend, this u say thats a right but he have taken all the search of neodram thats is not but we can work on thats already i am working to on this type or projects on generator and car and for Home ac too and already i have demo too of all this thinks and ia m suceed in this in generator i make 30kw to 750 kw machine and working form few months so its not to worry thats all will over to there china form we can also proof to much things in this worlds if we work on thats already i make the models of car also its work on only one time start and run as u like kilometer just one time charging 72 hours poiwer back in thats so if u like any query u can ask and be with me on my mail id on kgurmitsingh@hotmail.com

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/45769/Why-You-Shouldn-t-List-Your-Email-Address

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/rare_earths/mcs-2009-raree.pdf

Interesting information.

Is this GME (Greenland Minerals and Energy)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5AA1VK20091111

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6860901.ece

The email said that formerly rare earth was only present in China and that the Chinese state has bought or taken over all the companies which own concessions for mining of rare earth in China and that the Chinese government is going to hold the rest of the world to ransom

Hardly. China's rapidly expanding and developing economy requires more and more of the exported resources and while they are expanding their mining efforts, if other countries also want to greatly increase their use of Chinas exported resources then there will be an obvious shortfall when demand exceeds supply.

Is it true that hybrid or purely electrical automotive vehicles cannot work without RE elements?

No, with a but. No you don't need rare earth elements (other more common elements can be substituted for motors, magnets, batteries, etc) but they result in less efficient energy conversion, power output, energy density, etc.

Ignoring the marketing scaremongering however, Greenland REE mining may be a good investment.

http://www.ggg.gl/

Haven't heard about any discoveries of rare earths in Greenland and yes China does control about 90% of the world's rare earth production. Yes, RE, particularly Lithium are needed to make the batteries in Hybrids as well as cell phones and quite a few other things we take for granted.

Within the past month there were two news releases about potential commercial rare earth discoveries in Northern Saskatchewan Canada by junior mining companies. According to the news release, the Chinese government through Chinese mining companies has purchased the rights to all of the production of one of these potential mines. The other company has Toyota through its investment arm and another company as stake holders and as purchasers of product.

These mining companies never had to do more than announce that they might have commercial sized deposits and the money poured in. If the email wants you to invest, I think the ones behind it may be trying to mine your wallet not rare earth.

In addition, I expect the government of Greenland would have some say in who does mining exploration so I would make some enquiries as to how legitimate this company is with both the SEC in the US and the equivalent in Greenland.

It was in the Los Angeles Times about 2 month ago they will restart a mine near

Las Vegas, NV but it is in California. It has several rare earths in the mine. It will

take about 100 million to statup. Los Angeles Times rare earth mine in Mojave desert

Iceland also appears to be pushing into new areas for economic diversity.... iceland

benbenben

The use of neodymium or other permanent magnets (PM) in motors is not the only way to arrive to good design and performance of an electrical vehicle.

PM are relatively interesting for in wheel motors, because they mean less weight and less room required than with other type of electrical motor.

But the unsprung weight at each wheel is very high with wheel motors. (This is one reason that wheel motors were first widely used in heavy construction equipment rather than in cars.) High unsprung weight leads to poor ride and handling.

The PM motors have good as bad aspects. Low cost, as far as the owners of the RE mines do not increase the prices. Low weight, is other good characteristic. Less flexibility of design, and increase of the price of the electronic controls, are disadvantages:

Four channel control or four individual controllers are more expensive than a single controller.

The target of an electrical vehicle is to reduce the CO2 and noise emissions, not to change the power train. The elimination of clutch, transmission shaft, gearbox, differential assembly etc. has to be considered very carefully in each case, to arrive to a balanced design.

The use of PM motors seems to be a kind of a fashion.

More trials are needed to decide.

It sure sounds like a phishing scam to me. I would definitely thoroughly research them before investing a dime with them. Don't get scammed, there is so many of them out there. I receive phishing scam emails everyday.

Is it true that hybrid or purely electrical automotive vehicles cannot work without RE elements?

No. Most newer electric car motors considered for production are AC induction motors, which use no rare earth magnets. In large sizes, AC induction motors are over 90% efficient, and the small increment in efficiency from going to brushless DC motors is usually not warranted.

In my own small prototype, I am using PM magnet motors in which both the magnet material and the entire motor come from China. My motors are smallish however, roughly 20 hp peak. In these small motors, PM magnet motors are typically more efficient and lighter than AC induction motors.

Some hybrids use PM motors, and others use AC induction. But I think the trend is likely to be toward AC induction. AC induction motors have a torque characteristic that lends itself to electric vehicles, and this characteristic can largely eliminate the need for a transmission of multiple ratios (or CVT, etc.) My PM motors have a flat torque curve, and as a result need to be geared differently for high speed vs low speed. The people who use such motors with a single speed are either disappointed, or willing to accept poor grade performance or low top speed.

The Tesla shows both the benefits and limits of AC induction motors. It's acceleration is very good, but its top speed is far lower than other $100,000 sports cars. The motor is capable of producing the hp required for high speed, but not at the rpm required for high speed, if there is only one speed in the transmission. If the Tesla were sold to compete with a Mazda Miata at $25,000, then this limitation, which can be a little esoteric, would be less a concern, although even the Miata has a significantly higher top speed.

Of course there is no rationality in this at all -- but that is the nature of the automotive market. Even the Tesla's top speed of 120 is far faster than people should use on the road, and the Tesla could be a great alternative to a Miata or a sporty Honda Civic. It's AC induction motor and drive do not have to be horribly expensive, if production volumes were higher.

So, in short, no, PM magnet materials are not essential for hybrids, and even my own small one would have one or more AC induction motors if not for the weight and cost issues (with the latter being production volume driven -- it is not inherently much more costly to make an inverter drive than a DC drive.)

One of the best electric vehicles of recent history, the GM EV1, (which was far more efficient that the Tesla, incidentally, at 190 Wh per mile vs 310) used an AC induction motor, like the Tesla. The Solectria vehicles and GM S10 pickups also used AC motors.

For the time being, however, lithium for batteries, appears nearly essential -- but lithium is not considered a RE material.

Having said all that, PM motors are great things, and there will always be a demand for PM materials. The Honda Insight uses a PM motor around the flywheel, if I recall correctly (doubtful) -- so some very good designs from good companies do use PM motors -- it is just not essential. If wheel motors come into production, for larger vehicles they will likely use PM materials, as well.

This whole answer is grossly simplified, but I don't expect the electric vehicle industry to tumble down if RE materials are unduly expensive. The typical small garage conversion EV uses DC series motors which have no RE materials.

As if to make this post even longer... The Chinese "holding the world ransom" seems unlikely, although the premise that most of the RE exists in china is correct. The reason I have Chinese motors and controllers on my current prototype has to do with cost and availability. There is simply nothing produced in the US that offers the traits I am looking for, at any price*, let alone the very reasonable prices of the Chinese components.

* aside from having a $500 motor hand designed and built as a $20,000 prototype. A US controller manufacturer offered to deisgn and build a prototype for $30,000 that had the same charactersitics as a $250 Chinese production item.