Cheap Oil Is Killing The Electric Car

Gas prices today are below $2 a gallon and likely to stay there, which makes buying an electric car a hard sell.

"We'd all like to save the environment, but maybe not when it costs hundreds of dollars per year," Jessica Caldwell, director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com, told The New York Times. Low gasoline prices are leading even owners of electric vehicles to "defect" to gasoline cars.

The MIT study states that electric vehicles aren't helping the environment either. Only 12 percent of conventional power plants are green enough that charging an electric car from them leads to fewer emissions than the gasoline power vechiles they replace. 

Even though electric cars can be eligible for up to a $7,500 tax credit, the are still incredibly expensive. Bloomberg projections estimate that it will take until 2040 for electric cars to cost less than $22,000. There are still huge barriers to electric cars, according to a 2015 report by the National Research Council.

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Source: Cheap Oil Is Killing The Electric Car

Electric Car War Sends Lithium Prices Sky High

With lithium prices skyrocketing beyond wildest expectations, talk heating up about acquisitions and mergers in this space and a fast-brewing war among electric car rivals, it's no wonder everyone's bullish on this golden commodity that promises to become the "new gasoline".

Moreover, land grabs, rising price predictions, and expectations of a major demand spike are leaping out of the shadows of a pending energy revolution and a new technology-driven resource era.

For once, we have agreement across the board on a commodity: Demand for lithium will continue to rise throughout the year--and beyond--spurred by the rise of battery mega/gigafactories and a burgeoning energy storage business that will change the way we live.

That's why Goldman Sachs calls lithium the "new gasoline". It's also why The Economist calls it "the world's hottest commodity", and talks about a "global scramble to secure supplies of lithium by the world's largest battery producers, and by end-users such as carmakers."

In fact, as the Economist notes, the price of 99%-pure lithium carbonate imported to China more than doubled in the two months to the end of December -- putting it at a whopping $13,000 per ton.

But what you might not know is that this playing field is fast becoming a battlefield that has huge names such as Apple, Google and start-up Faraday Future throwing down for electric car market share and even reportedly gaming to see who can steal the best engineers.

Apple has now come out of the closet with plans for its own electric car by 2019, putting it on a direct collision course with Tesla. And Google, too, is pushing fast into this arena with its self-driving car project through its Alphabet holding company.

Then we have the Faraday Future start-up -- backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting--which has charged onto this scene with plans for a new $1-billion factory in Las Vegas, and is hoping to produce its first car next year already.

Ensuring the best engineers for all these rival projects opens up a second front line in the war. They've all been at each other's recruitment throats for months, stealing each other's prized staff.

And when the wave of megafactories starts pumping out batteries -- with the first slated to come online as soon as next year--we could need up to 100,000 tons of new lithium carbonate by 2021. It's an amount of lithium we just don't have right now.

The war is definitely on, and lithium prices are the immediate and long-term beneficiary. It all depends on batteries, so it all depends on lithium.

The Lithium Oligopoly Ends Here, In Nevada

This is where the lithium oligopoly ends. It's where new entrants to the lithium mining game step in to forge a very lucrative future.

Right now, lithium isn't even traded as a commodity; rather, it is managed through an oligopoly of three or four major global suppliers who have managed supply and demand for decades. That's why everything is priced on a contract basis.

This year could see that change, which makes it a prime time to get in on lithium.

"The few major suppliers who have so far been responsible for all lithium supply and demand are not going to be able to meet new demand. This is why 2016 will be a very interesting year for anyone with the foresight to see the end of this oligopoly and the potential decoupling of lithium from other commodities," Dr. Andy Robinson, COO of Pure Energy Minerals (OTMKTS:HMGLF), told Oilprice.com.

Producers are now working quickly to stake their claims and position themselves strategically to become key suppliers.

So far, so good. Pure Energy, for one, is the only player in Nevada that has managed a conditional agreement with a company building the world's largest battery factory, which is located only four hours from Pure Energy's proposed mine.

There has been other movement in this space as well--broader, global movement that gives us even more reason to be bullish on lithium.

The fourth quarter of 2015 and the beginning of this year have seen a lot of talk about Australia's mining giant Rio Tinto considering entering the hot lithium space.

A Major Long-Term Game

This is an energy revolution that is still in its early days, but it's such a hot commodity right now that chances to get in on the long-term game are narrowing by the day. And Nevada -- ground zero in this revolution--is already raking in the benefits because it is the only U.S. state that both produces lithium and holds vast new resource potential.

In 2013 alone, Nevada doubled lithium production capacity, according to the USGS--and that is just the tip of the iceberg given all of the new exploration going on and the fast and furious land-grabbing.

The next wave of battery factories are expected to increase global battery capacity by some 150% by 2020. Within this prediction, electric vehicles will have a projected 20-30% compounded annual growth rate through 2025, so the demand for lithium appears endless.

Some say the lithium market is already at a supply deficit, and the rising prices make new projects even more attractive.

The lithium oligopoly is already a dinosaur, and new lithium projects on highly prospective land forwarded by companies with lower market caps and strong management are what investors will be looking for.

The brine is the place to be, and right now Pure Energy has the only brine resource in North America. It is also directly adjacent to the only producing lithium mine in North America, Albermarle Silver Peak Mine (NYSE:ALB). Lithium sourced from brine, or salty water, is the most cost-effective out there because it is easier and cheaper to extract.

There are billions of reasons to be bullish on lithium, and bullish on Nevada. Goldman Sachs gets it. Not only will lithium feed massive portable energy storage applications, but it will be a "key enabler of the electric car revolution and replace gasoline as the primary source of transportation fuel."

This commodity that isn't yet a commodity in trading terms is about to break free from the oligopoly. Get there first.

Article Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Electric-Car-War-Sends-Lithium-Prices-Sky-High.html

By James Stafford of Oilprice.com

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Source: Electric Car War Sends Lithium Prices Sky High

Nissan disables app that hacked the electric LEAF

Japanese auto giant Nissan Motor's electric vehicle "Leaf" is seen on display at the Tokyo Motor Show on November 2, 2015. Nissan boosted its full-year forecasts, citing new model rollouts along with upbeat sales in North America and Europe that offset weakness in the home market on November 2. T(Photo: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO, AFP/Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO - Nissan on Wednesday disabled an app that allowed owners of its electric LEAF car to control their cars' heating and cooling from their phones, after an Australian researcher showed he could use it to control others' cars as well.

The NissanConnect EV app, formerly called CarWings, enabled a remote hacker to access the Leaf's temperature controls and review its driving record, merely by knowing the car's VIN (vehicle identification number).

Computer security researcher Troy Hunt published a blog post Wednesday describing how he discovered the flaw and initially reported it to Nissan on Jan. 23. He contacted the company multiple times and only posted his blog after the issue began to be discussed on security forums online, he wrote.

Nissan did not announce it was disabling the app after he had done so.

The company's Steve Yaeger said in an email to USA TODAY that the issues relating to the app had "no effect whatsoever on the vehicle's operation or safety."

In a statement, the company said, "our 200,000 LEAF drivers across the world can continue to use their cars safely and with total confidence. The only functions that are affected are those controlled via the mobile phone – all of which are still available to be used manually, as with any standard vehicle."

The company said it was looking forward to launching an updated version of its app "very soon."

In his blog, Hunt emphasized that while this particular security vulnerability was trivial because it didn't impact the  driving controls of the vehicle, it is a cautionary tale for auto makers.

"As car manufacturers rush towards joining in on the 'internet of things' craze, security cannot be an afterthought nor something we're told they take seriously after realizing that they didn't take it seriously enough in the first place," he wrote.

"We are lucky in this case that the attacks were only focused on functionality in the air-conditioning and heating system of the car and were done by a 'white hat' and not a criminally minded black hat hacker," said Reiner Kappenberger, a product manager with Curpertino, Calif.-based HPE Security – Data Security

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Source: Nissan disables app that hacked the electric LEAF

Nissan Leaf electric cars hack vulnerability disclosed

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Nissan Leaf is the world's best-selling electric car

Some of Nissan's Leaf cars can be easily hacked, allowing their heating and air-conditioning systems to be hijacked, according to a prominent security researcher.

Troy Hunt reported that a flaw with the electric vehicle's companion app also meant data about drivers' recent journeys could be spied on.

Mr Hunt said he gave the firm a month to fix the issue before he decided to make it public.

Nissan said it could not yet comment.

The problem remains unresolved but Mr Hunt said car owners could protect themselves by disabling their Nissan CarWings account. Those who have never signed up are not at risk.

Image copyright Nissan Image caption Mr Hunt believes the NissanConnect app needs to do more to check the user's identity

Mr Hunt acknowledged that the issue was not life-threatening, but said hackers could still exploit the NissanConnect app's vulnerability to cause mischief by running down people's batteries.

"The right thing to do at the moment would be for Nissan to turn it off altogether," Mr Hunt told the BBC.

"They are going to have to let customers know. And to be honest, a fix would not be hard to do.

"It's not that they have done authorisation [on the app] badly, they just haven't done it at all, which is bizarre."

The BBC contacted the Japanese carmaker but a spokeswoman said it was not yet able to comment.

Image caption Mr Hunt said he decided to publicise the problem because other car owners were aware of it

Mr Hunt said the root of the problem was that the firm's NissanConnect app needed only a car's vehicle identification number (Vin) to take control.

The code is usually stencilled into a car's windscreen, making it relatively easy to copy.

The initial characters of a Vin refer to the brand, make of car, and country of manufacture/location of the firm's headquarters.

So, Mr Hunt said, it would only be the final numbers that varied between different Nissan Leafs based in the same region.

"Normally it's only the last five digits that differ," he explained.

"There's nothing to stop someone from scripting a process that goes through every 100,000 possible cars and tries and turn the air conditioning on in every one.

"They would then get a response that would confirm which vehicles exist."

Hack tested

Attackers would not even need to use the app, he added, since the commands could be sent via a web browser.

To confirm the proble m, Australia-based Mr Hunt used the Vin number of a Nissan Leaf-owning acquaintance based in the UK.

Image copyright Troy Hunt Image caption Mr Hunt was able to connect to a friend's Nissan Leaf and see data about recent journeys

"I was sat in the vehicle with everything powered off and didn't have my key on me," recalled Scott Helme, who is also a cybersecurity adviser.

"So, the vehicle was as it would be if it was completely unattended.

"As I was talking to Troy on Skype, he pasted the web address into his browser and then maybe 10 seconds later I heard an internal beep in the car.

"The heated seat then turned on, the heated steering wheel turned on. And I could hear the fans spin up and the air-conditioning unit turn on."

Further tests indicated that the hack did not work if the vehicle was in motion.

But it was possible to see the owner's registered username, which might help reveal their identity.

Furthermore, times and distances of recent journeys were disclosed, but not location data.

As soon as Mr Helme unregistered his app, Mr Hunt could no longer contact his car.

"It's not as bad as it could be," Mr Helme told the BBC.

Online forum

"But if I was to monitor your movements over the course of the week and learn when you go to and from work, shortly after you got to your office I could run the heating for the remainder of the day.

"That would potentially leave you with very little power - certainly not enough to get back home."

Further analysis indicated that the app does not talk directly to the cars, but instead sent its commands via Nissan's computer servers.

Image caption Nissan announced in December than more than 200,000 Nissan Leaf cars had been sold to date

As a result, Mr Hunt said, it would be easy for Nissan to suspend the service.

The researcher also discovered that some Canadian owners of the Leaf had discovered and shared knowledge of the flaw on an online forum and had posted a web address that could be used to spoof the app.

"I decided we were past the point of not letting the cat out of the bag," he said, justifying his decision to blog about the discovery before Nissan had issued a fix.

"Unfortunately what we are seeing is just another case of security being important after a problem is discovered," he added.

Source: Nissan Leaf electric cars hack vulnerability disclosed

Should the EPA force VW to build electric car infrastructure as penance for the emissions scandal?

This weekend, the respected German newspaper Die Welt reported that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not rest on fines and fixes for the "Clean Diesel" technology that relied on a software cheat to beat emissions testing while releasing up to 1 million tons of NOx pollution each year.

Instead, under the subheader "VW not enthused about EPA plans," Die Welt reports that EPA demands include production of electric cars at the VW plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee and an obligation to build a network of electric charging stations. It is not clear whether EPA's demands relate to production quotas, new models, or expansion of production of the existing electric and hybrid motors in VW's current range of automobiles.

Although VW and EPA both declined to comment officially to Die Welt, the paper reports that "At VW, they are naturally not enthusiastic over the plans in Washington, which will cost the company additional umpteen millions."

It seems like not such a bad idea though. Often, the American authorities can lower the size of fines in exchange for an agreement that might benefit the company more than a simple monetary penalty. A somewhat unique aspect of the prosecution of corporate crimes under regulations such as those of EPA or OSHA (for occupational safety) is the multiplier factor: the law sets a maximum penalty for a violation; but the EPA can consider every car and every day each car operated as a separate violation. So do the math, 600,000 cars times how many days times even not anywhere near the maximum penalty will still add up to a hard hit. With the threat of huge fines, the EPA can then set about negotiating a more win-win scenario.

Discussions over how to fix the affected cars also continue. Die Welt notes that Americans often ignore recall actions, and unlike German laws, the American laws cannot force VW owners to bring their cars in for a fix, when and if VW figures out what that fix will be. So EPA cannot ensure that the cars already in service will not continue to add to the pollution burden for many years to come.

How it will all come out remains to be seen. But if negotiations could result in a boost for electric car penetration in the American market, and help VW regain trust by supporting American jobs and a clean car infrastructure, perhaps the VW emissions scandal could be turned into a benefit for consumers and the environment after all.

Source: Should the EPA force VW to build electric car infrastructure as penance for the emissions scandal?

Ontario, Canada, Boosts Electric-Car Purchase Rebate Amounts

As U.S. electric-vehicle advocates are well aware, a handful of states have reduced or killed incentives for plug-in vehicles over the past year, adding some headwinds to sales.

Earlier this month, the Canadian province of Ontario took the opposite approach, expanding its plug-in electric vehicle incentive program. It's a welcome tailwind.

The new initiative isn't entirely surprising, as the province has burnished its green credentials in recent years, notably phasing out its use of coal.

DON'T MISS: When Electric-Car Incentives Return: British Columbia Case Study

Premier Kathleen Wynne was also the Minister of Transportation when the province's first incentive program was introduced six years ago, so she may have a deeper appreciation of the history than many of her provincial or state peers.

Ontarians previously received a purchase rebate ranging from $5,000 to $8,500 based on the battery size of their plug-in electric car.

Electric Vehicle Purchase Rebate program, Ontario, Canada

Enlarge Photo

The now-discontinued Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid's 4.4-kilowatt-hour battery earned the minimum rebate, while vehicles with batteries of 16 kWh or more earned the maximum.

The new rebates have been set at $6,000 to $10,000 for vehicles with 5- to 16-kWh batteries, respectively--and cars with batteries larger than 16 kWh qualify for a further $3,000 rebate.

Autos with five or more seats qualify for an additional rebate of $1,000, perhaps in recognition that four-seaters such as the BMW i3 and first-generation Chevy Volt don't offer quite the same utility.

Lastly, in a nod to the tenuous optics of offering rebates to luxury-car buyers, purchase rebates are capped at $3,000 for vehicles with a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price above $75,000--and do not apply to cars costing more than $150,000.

British Columbia reinstates its incentives for plug-in electric car purchase, February 2015

Enlarge Photo

As a patient public servant told us:

"Our decision to cap incentives for vehicles with a MSRP of $75,000 reflects the trend toward more affordable [electric cars] coming to market – vehicles that will appeal to more and more Ontarians.

"However, EVs still carry a significant price premium when compared to an equivalent gasoline vehicle. Our modernized Electric Vehicle Incentive Program will help make these vehicles more affordable to the average family.

"We will continue to provide incentives for vehicles at the higher end of the range, but it is increasingly difficult to justify providing incentives to high-income earners for vehicles that may likely be purchased regardless of the incentive. That is the reason we are focusing the program's funds where it makes the most sense: on mid-range vehicles."

Tesla fans may be disappointed that the Model S and X will only qualify for $3,000 in provincial rebates.

2016 Tesla Model X with 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport, photographed by owner Bonnie Norman

Enlarge Photo

But even if the company's Model 3 arrives late, it should qualify for a whopping $14,000 in incentives, because the program presently has no cap.

Quoting the same government representative:

"At this time, the program does not have a specific end date. However, we will be regularly reviewing the incentive program to ensure it is responsive to industry trends and emerging technologies."

Rebates will also be capped at 30 percent of manufacturer's MSRP, meaning that buyers won't be able to buy the Smart Electric Drive for half-price. (Smart ED buyers would otherwise receive $13,000 in rebates for a $26,990 vehicle.)

The government webpage listing rebates for qualifying plug-in electric vehicles can be found here.

Next-best to ZEV?

Policy analysts and advocates are nearly unanimous in agreeing that a California-style Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate is the best way to ramp up plug-in electric vehicle adoption at a rapid pace. If automakers are required to sell such vehicles, they'll do so, cross-subsidizing from the rest of their product lines.

ALSO SEE: Canadian Plug-in Electric Vehicle Study: 1 Percent To 30 Percent Is The Challenge

Of course, ZEV mandates are very, very difficult to implement politically--and California is something of a special case.

Wealthy and populous, the state is a big enough auto market that carmakers can't afford to simply stop selling cars there.

In addition, the earliest regulatory efforts by the California Air Resources Board were aimed at fighting smog, a visible pollutant and lung irritant which tended to galvanize voter support more than does carbon dioxide, the colorless, odorless greenhouse gas.

Source: Ontario, Canada, Boosts Electric-Car Purchase Rebate Amounts

Ajman offers free parking for electric cars

(Image for illustrative purpose only - Getty Images)

Ajman has become the first of the seven emirates to offer free parking for electric cars, an environment ministry official has revealed.

Fahad Hareb, the director of the Air Quality Department at the UAE's newly renamed Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, said the government is working with municipalities to incentivise citizens to use environmentally friendly cars, according to Khaleej Times.

He reportedly told the newspaper: "The Ajman Municipality has offered free parking for anyone who has an electric or eco-friendly car.

"We are putting together the regulations to ensure that it is done properly, mostly by mid-year.

"We hope such perks will encourage people to go for eco-friendly cars."

Abu Dhabi and Sharjah are also understood to be preparing to introduce free parking for electric cars.

The newspaper said that, in Dubai, said the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has agreed to provide free Salik (toll gate) tags and special parking for electric cars.

Other proposed incentives include designated slots for eco-friendly vehicles, to make it easier for drivers to find a space.

The UAE has set ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions and energy use across the country.

Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE (ATCUAE), told the newspaper electric cars is a new concept in the Middle East but one that should be promoted more widely.

"People here are not yet used to buying this kind of cars yet. But the positive impact and environmental solutions offered by this concept make it imperative for all the parties concerned to work on setting an effective strategy that can contribute in spreading this concept in the near future, he was quoted as saying.

Oman's Nur Majan is reportedly the first electric car to be manufactured in the Gulf and will be brought to market in the UAE by 2019, the newspaper said.

Source: Ajman offers free parking for electric cars