External News & Commentary, page-687

Posted this yesterday and it just doesn't seem it stop. You'd think I'd be used to it by now.

The change has been monumental. Not only are vehicle manufacturers poring in more money and bringing their production targets forward, but govts are also bring forward in bans and moving them forward. This will only get worse as they struggle to meet their Paris targets so they'll then bring more forward. UK banned the sale of ICE vehicles by 2035 then 2 months later brought it forward to 2030. By 2025-26 emission targets for the EU kick in attracting penalties/levies on buying PHEV's.

Ford just announced:
Ford Motor Co. will drastically overhaul its business in Europe, where it didn’t sell a single fully electric vehicle last year, vowing to go almost entirely electric by the end of the decade.

One of the first steps in the transformation announced Wednesday will be to plow $1 billion into a German assembly plant that will start making an all-electric model in two years. By mid-2026, all passenger cars Ford sells will be plug-in hybrids or fully electric. Just when the above mentioned emission targets kick in. ATM PHEV's out sell BEV's so expect that to flip as we get closer to 2025/26 ie more lithium, graphite required

By 2030, Ford’s passenger-vehicle range will be completely all-electric -- one of the more demanding road maps among Europe’s major incumbent carmakers. Only its smaller but strategically important commercial-vehicle business will sell some vans and trucks that lack a plug by then.

“Consumers increasingly want us to go electric,” Ford Europe President Stuart Rowley said in an interview. “Our customers are very focused on sustainability and they want the brands and companies they work with to go on this journey with them.”

Anybody have a clue how much lithium was used in the manufacturing of EV's in 2019 and 2020? The answer might shock you.