Toyota Readies Cheaper Electric Motor by Halving Rare Earth Use

Megalith

Megalith

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Toyota has developed a new magnet for electric motors, which allows for a 50-percent reduction in rare earth neodymium and the elimination of terbium and dysprosium. These will be replaced by lanthanum and cerium, which are many times cheaper.

Rare earths along with metals like lithium and cobalt are seeing soaring demand from a growing electric vehicle market, propelled mainly by increasingly stringent emissions restrictions worldwide. China, which is home to the world’s biggest auto market and the leader in electric vehicle sales, supplies more than 80 percent of rare earths globally.
 
50% less rare earth metal usage, but does the motor weigh the same (or less) and does it offer the same (or more) power/torque the traditional one has?
Because this somewhat reminds me of when power cables started to use less lead in their insulation, as well as lead free solder.

The cable insulation was more prone to dry rotting and releasing more powdered lead into the room, until some tweaks were made
Lead free solder was all fine and dandy, except the manufacturing process was less than perfect and resulted in a lot of dry cracks forming. Especially on chips with BGA arrangement that ran hot and/or had a flimsy chasis that flexed a lot (Many 2000's Laptops).
 
Iv'e looked at a few of them...have to say they do things pretty well, and for import stuff. and been a lot of them with high miles and no sensor problems still.
 
what..you want brand Loyalty? It's all the same shit and many were trained and taught that way, this is how who does what and or this shit etc lol
 
viper1152012 said:
So cheaper for them and they'll pass on the savings?

..I think not
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Deosn't really matter in the greater scheme of things. You can print more money anytime. But you can't print rare materials.
 
M76 said:
Deosn't really matter in the greater scheme of things. You can print more money anytime. But you can't print rare materials.
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Well once fusion power is realized that won't be the case anymore. Of course it probably won't be done in our lifetimes. :)
 
Geef said:
Well once fusion power is realized that won't be the case anymore. Of course it probably won't be done in our lifetimes. :)
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Being able to use fusion to produce sizeable quantities of specific elemental isotopes is probably hundreds of years in the future at least. Maybe future civilizations will seed stars then wait for them to go nova just to pick up the heavy elements?
 
Love China, undercut the world for several important minerals and elements and once competing operations shut down, they started jerking supply and caused price increases. This didn't happen until the investor pool for those other locations dried up and joined in with them.
 
jpm100 said:
Love China, undercut the world for several important minerals and elements and once competing operations shut down, they started jerking supply and caused price increases. This didn't happen until the investor pool for those other locations dried up and joined in with them.
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Mountain Pass was slated to reopen with MolyCorp spending around $1 billion to modernize it back a few years ago and it looks like there has been some movement on the regulatory front there at least in December. Unfortunately, MP Mine Operations LLC who now owns Mountain Pass after buying it in MolyCopr's bankruptcy auction is also a Chinese consortium though.
 
Electric cars will never become mainstream and be a viable replacement for the ICE as long as the raw materials necessary for production remain in short supply. As of this moment electric vehicles are a dead end.
 
thejokker said:
Electric cars will never become mainstream and be a viable replacement for the ICE as long as the raw materials necessary for production remain in short supply. As of this moment electric vehicles are a dead end.
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The supply is not short. Production is manipulated to keep prices as high as possible but just low enough to prevent anyone from starting production elsewhere. That's a pretty high price since you would need investors who would be dumb enough to think China wouldn't just undercut them out of business.
 
jpm100 said:
The supply is not short. Production is manipulated to keep prices as high as possible but just low enough to prevent anyone from starting production elsewhere. That's a pretty high price since you would need investors who would be dumb enough to think China wouldn't just undercut them out of business.
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There is a shortage of cobalt...
 
jpm100 said:
There's also shortages of oil, corn, and cars. All of which can be resolved at a higher price point. So, what's your point?
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No... Making things more expensive does not eliminate the problems. If there is a shortage of an essential component (i.e. cobalt) there will be a shortage of batteries. If there is a shortage of batteries there will be a shortage of cars. If there is insufficient number of cars to meet demand than electric cars as a replacement for ICE cars will be a big dead end. Why invest time and money in a dead end technology?

Perhaps I should have been less concise... There is a "critical" shortage of cobalt with no viable alternatives in sight. The shortage could impact smartphones and similar devices as well as electric cars. Will people give up their Androids and iPhones in order to have electric cars? I don't think so...
 
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