Ford Follows Elon Musk with New EV Battery Technology

Back in October, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) announced it would be changing the type of battery the company uses in its standard-range electric vehicles… Back in October, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) announced it would be changing the type of battery the company uses in its standard-range electric vehicles... [Energy and Capital logo] Ford Follows Elon Musk with New EV Battery Technology [Luke Burgess Photo] By [Luke Burgess]( Written May 25, 2022 Back in October, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) announced it would be changing the type of battery the company uses in its standard-range electric vehicles. And the switch to this new type of battery has created a truly unique investment opportunity. Tesla’s Big Switch For its standard-range EVs, Tesla has been using a type of lithium-ion battery that employs a mixture of nickel, cobalt, and aluminum as the cathode. Meanwhile, other manufacturers use mixtures of nickel, cobalt, and manganese as a cathode in their EV batteries. Nickel, aluminum, and manganese are all very abundant resources that are found and mined all over the world. But cobalt, on the other hand, poses a major problem for EV battery makers. Cobalt is not a very rare element, but it is difficult to find concentrations of it that are high enough to mine. What that means is, although cobalt is not rare, cobalt mines are quite rare. As a result, more than 70% of the entire world’s supply of cobalt comes from a single country. That actually wouldn’t be too much of a problem if that country wasn't the Democratic Republic of the Congo. -------------------------------------Advertisement------------------------------------- The #1 Company to Jump-Start a New Era of Nuclear Power There’s a brand-new type of fuel that’s about to usher in the next generation of nuclear energy... And the demand for it is HUGE. Because an entire fleet of smaller, safer, and cleaner nuclear reactors are coming online right now... And they can’t operate without this specific fuel, which is the only kind potent enough to power our electric grid 24/7... The U.S. government granted one company the ONLY license to produce it here in America... [Read more about the sole U.S. company producing this fuel right now.]( --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Democratic Republic of the Congo has one of the worst track records for human rights violations on the planet. Here’s a list of human rights violations that occurred in the DRC during 2020, according to the U.S. State Department. The State Department says that significant human rights issues included: - Unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings; - Forced disappearances; - Torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; - Harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; - Arbitrary detention; - Political prisoners or detainees; - Serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; - Arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; - Serious abuses in an internal conflict, including killing of civilians, enforced disappearances or abductions, and torture and physical abuses or punishment, unlawful recruitment or use of child soldiers by illegal armed groups, and other conflict-related abuses; - Serious restrictions on free expression and the press, including violence, threats of violence, or unjustified arrests of journalists, censorship, and criminal libel; - Interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association; - Serious acts of official corruption; - Lack of investigation and accountability for violence against women; - Trafficking in persons; - Crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting persons with disabilities, members of national, racial, and ethnic minority groups, and indigenous people; - Crimes involving violence or threat of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons; and - Existence of the worst forms of child labor. According to estimates, of the 225,000 miners working in the DRC, approximately 40,000 are children. Some are as young as 6 years old. It’s a living nightmare. And 70% of the world’s cobalt — the cobalt in all of our cellphones, laptops, and electric vehicles — has to be sourced from this hell on Earth. That doesn’t sit well (as it shouldn’t) with many investors, especially in today’s climate of cancel culture. Something needs to be done. --------------------------------------Advertisement-------------------------------------- Endless Power From a Device Thinner Than a Business Card It can turn every home, skyscraper, and stadium into its own “power plant” — capable of generating its own endless clean electricity 24/7... No storage batteries, generators, or ugly solar panels required. Not even the power grid is needed! This new device is about to create a seismic shift in the global energy industry. [Check out my research on this disruptive little firm.]( ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some companies, like Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), have been getting away with sourcing their cobalt needs through recycling. But the odds are that recycled cobalt was originally mined in the DRC anyway, which doesn’t help Apple look any better. More than half of the world’s cobalt resources are located in the DRC. That means battery makers can’t just start getting their cobalt from a new mine source. So the EV battery industry has come up with a different strategy to avoid sourcing cobalt from the DRC: Change the formula. As I mentioned, Tesla has been using a type of lithium-ion battery that employs a mixture of nickel, cobalt, and aluminum as the cathode. But back in October, the company announced it was changing the battery chemistry for standard-range EVs to use a lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cathode. These new LFP batteries are less energy-dense than those used now. However, they are cheaper to manufacture and don’t require cobalt. Tesla has already begun using LFP batteries in its Model 3. And now other auto manufacturers and EV battery makers are following suit. During Ford's (NYSE: F) Q1 2022 earnings call, CEO Jim Farley hinted at a switch to LFP, saying, “We’ve been working on LFP for quite some time, so let’s just leave it at that. What I mean by that is engineering LFP solutions in our first generation of products is something that we see as a big opportunity to move quickly.” Meanwhile, Volkswagen and Mercedes have also mentioned plans of employing lithium-iron-phosphate batteries. LG Energy Solutions just unveiled a brand-new LFP battery cell for energy storage systems at a recent consumer technology show in South Korea. [phosphate] Reports say this residential battery storage solution can be installed in various capacities, ranging from 8.6 kWh to 17.2 kWh. It’s not just Tesla making the switch to LFP — it’s everyone. --------------------------------------Advertisement---------------------------------- World Economic Forum Predicts New Space Tech "Could Save Humanity" Right now, billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk are all scrambling to stake their claim in this explosive new sector. And there’s one company at the center of it all, focused on using space technology to improve our lives here on Earth. It makes satellite launches quicker and easier, which could lead to launching more than 12,000 satellites into space. This would not only provide us with super-fast internet... But ultra-exact hurricane and glacier warnings, automatic SOS signals for aircrafts and ships, and breakthrough biotech experiments. And if you get in early, massive potential gains are on the table. [Learn more here.]( ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, of course, the switch to using these lithium-iron-phosphate batteries is going to require sourcing lithium, iron, and phosphate. And, fortunately, none of that is a problem… Except for phosphate. Like cobalt, phosphate is not rare. It’s actually very common. And even though most of the world’s phosphate reserves are located in Morocco, phosphate mines are also quite common. Excluding most of Europe, phosphate mines are found all over the inhabited world. However, there’s still a big sourcing problem for battery makers who will need the material for their products… Ninety-five percent of the world’s phosphate mines produce a very toxic and dangerous waste product called phosphogypsum. Phosphogypsum contains toxic heavy metals like mercury, lead, and cadmium, as well as dangerous radioactive uranium, thorium, radium, and radon. And there’s nothing that can be cost-effectively done to clean up this waste material. So this toxic and dangerous phosphogypsum is most often just left in long-term storage stacks. Florida already has a developing problem with phosphogypsum stacks. According to Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity, “With 24 more phosphogypsum stacks storing more than 1 billion tons of this dangerous, radioactive waste in Florida, the EPA needs to step in right now.” [phosphate] If EV battery makers want to get their phosphate from a mine that won’t produce this toxic and radioactive waste, they’re going to source that material from one of the rare 5% of phosphate mines that won’t produce this waste. And I know exactly where they can look. I’ve already taken up a lot of your time today, but if you want to learn more about phosphate, LFP batteries, and the rare phosphate mines that don't produce toxic and radioactive waste, [read more here](. Until next time, [Luke Burgess Signature] Luke Burgess Luke’s analysis and market research reach hundreds of thousands of investors every day. Through his work with the Outsider Club and Junior Mining Trader, Luke helps investors in leveraging the future supply-demand imbalance that he believes could be key to a cyclical upswing in the hard asset markets. For more on Luke, go to his [editor’s page](. --------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to {EMAIL}. It is not our intention to send email to anyone who doesn't want it. If you're not sure why you've received this e-letter, or no longer wish to receive it, you may [unsubscribe here]( and view our privacy policy and information on how to manage your subscription. To ensure that you receive future issues of Energy and Capital, please add customerservice@angelpub.com to your address book or whitelist within your spam settings. 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