EV batteries. You have to build them, charge them, recycle them — and make sure there’s enough of them.
This week’s Automotive News covers a variety of topics surrounding the batteries that power electric vehicles, from their birth to their useful life to their disposition to their rebirth.
One story goes in-depth about a relatively obscure provision of the Inflation Reduction Act: Section 45X. While most of the attention has been on the federally funded incentives granted to consumers of certain EVs, the advanced manufacturing production tax credit has the potential to be a boon to U.S. battery manufacturers and their automaking partners. The credits they can receive through 2032 — in some cases, as direct payments from the federal government — could be substantial. But with billions of dollars on the table, Section 45X has come under criticism from Republican lawmakers.
We also examine a watershed moment in the brief history of the EV: General Motors last week followed Ford Motor Co. in agreeing to make its vehicles compatible with Elon Musk’s network of Tesla chargers. The notion of GM and Ford partnering with the EV juggernaut on such a critical part of the value chain might once have been unthinkable. But third-party chargers have proven to be exponentially less reliable than Tesla’s robust network — a significant barrier to non-Tesla EV adoption. The question: Will more automakers follow suit? And will Tesla loyalists revolt when they see, say, a Chevy in their midst at the charging station?
Sticking with GM, another story describes the strategy behind the automaker’s EV Live studio, a nearly year-old effort to help people understand everything from battery architecture to how to charge an EV at home and on the go. “This is about us selling the EV lifestyle,” says one executive. Will this kind of customer engagement break the aforementioned barrier to EV adoption? Time will tell.
Finally, in the Shift Mobility Report, we look at battery recycler Redwood Materials‘ push to ensure there are enough batteries to meet rapidly growing demand. Says a company exec: “It’s all on us … the quicker we go, the quicker we can build, the quicker we can get recycled content into batteries. We are pushing ourselves as hard as we can.”
Of course, there are even more facets of the growing EV world throughout this week’s issue. And there is some interesting internal-combustion product on the horizon, as well. EV or ICE, we cover it all.