EV Archives - The Georgia Star News

Biden Admin Gives Ford, Foreign Company Whopping $9 Billion Loan for EV Plants

June 23, 2023 Georgia Star News Staff

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday announced a conditional loan of up to $9.2 billion to a joint electric vehicle venture between Ford and Korean battery maker SK On.

When combined with state subsidies offered to the joint venture, known as BlueOval SK, the record-breaking loan means that taxpayers will be financing nearly the entire $11.4 billion investment by Ford and SK, according to Blomberg. The loan is the latest in a series of increasingly large offers from the DOE’s Loan Program Office (LPO), which had its lending authority surge to $400 billion — more than 10 times the $33 billion it has issued since 2009 —following the passage of President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Commentary: The Nonsensical ‘Holy Climate Panacea’ Triad of More Wind, Solar, and Electric Cars is Maddening

May 31, 2023 RealClearWire

This list could be closer to 50 but let’s just stick to a handful of them. I literally live in this business every day, and I’m just so confused.

Kemp Says $4.3 Billion EV Battery Plant in Georgia Touted by Ossoff Was ‘Previously Announced’

May 27, 2023May 26, 2023 The Center Square

LG Energy Solution and Hyundai Motor Group plan to jointly build a $4.3 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia, an investment U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, said was possible because of incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

However, a spokesman for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp disputed that assertion saying it’s part of a previously announced investment that predates the federal legislation.

EPA Proposes New Standards to Require Two-Thirds of New Car Sales by 2032 Be EVs

April 13, 2023April 12, 2023 Just the News

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced what is being considered its strongest-ever proposed pollution standards for gas-powered vehicles – which if enacted would effectively mandate that 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2032 must be zero-emission ones.

The rule has been expected for weeks and is a dramatic, proposed increase from President Biden’s stated goal of 50 percent zero-emission passenger car sales – including battery-powered electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles – by 2030. It would also likely and dramatically increase EV sales, which accounted for just 5.6 percent of new car sales in the U.S. last year, according to Road & Track.com.

‘Sustainable’ Electric Cars Are Getting Junked Over Minor Damage

March 21, 2023 Admin

Insurers are being forced to write off many electric vehicles with only minor damage to battery packs, sending the batteries to scrap yards and hindering the climate benefits of going electric, Reuters reported.

Battery packs typically represent roughly half the cost of an electric vehicle, sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars, often making it more economical for insurers to consider a car as totalled than replace a battery pack, according to Reuters. While many carmakers, including Ford and GM, told Reuters that their battery packs were repairable, many are unwilling to share key data with third-party insurers to help assess damage.

Battery Manufacturer Plans $2.5B Facility in Georgia, but Officials Silent on Incentives

November 15, 2022November 14, 2022 The Center Square

A battery producer plans to spend more than $2.5 billion on a manufacturing facility in Coweta County.

FREYR Battery plans to create 723 new jobs over seven years as a part of its investment.

Georgia’s US Senators Vote for Bill Stripping One of State’s Largest Employers of EV Tax Credits

August 21, 2022August 20, 2022 Georgia Star News Staff

Georgia’s two senators voted for the Democrats’ recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, even though it strips South Korean automaker Kia — one of the state’s largest employers — of eligibility for the law’s electric vehicle tax credits.

Kia, which employs thousands in Georgia, is planning to build another automobile factory in the state and hire 8,500 people, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Due to domestic assembly requirements in the new law, however, the automaker’s EV and plug-in fleet will lose their current eligibility for $7,500 tax credits on the purchase of new electric vehicles.

Commentary: Electric Vehicles Are a Tool of Tyranny

July 9, 2022July 8, 2022 RealClearWire

First, don’t blame the vehicle. It is a tool that might be just what Los Angeles needs to cope with inversions. Electric vehicles are also very good as airport shuttles and for other locations where short, repetitive routes are the primary use. Some may even be fun to drive (except when they catch on fire).

Hyundai’s New EV Plant in Georgia Will Produce Gas Cars: REPORT

May 17, 2022May 16, 2022 Admin

South Korea-based automaker Hyundai is set to announce a new $7 billion manufacturing electric vehicle (EV) plant in the U.S. that will also make gas-powered cars, according to several media reports.

“We are excited to announce a new EV plant plan in the United States soon, but we do not have details to share at this stage,” Hyundai told Reuters in a statement on Monday.

Commentary: Joe Biden’s Electric Car Plans Support the World’s Worst Humanitarian Abuses

March 14, 2022March 14, 2022 RealClearWire

In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden promoted electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeting his plans to establish “a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.” In so doing, Biden is unwittingly supporting the worst humanitarian abuses in the world. This is because of the way in which the materials used in manufacturing the batteries that power today’s EVs are obtained.

To obtain a reasonable amount of power per pound of battery weight, EV manufacturers generally use various forms of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, so named because the battery’s positive electrode, called the cathode, is largely made up of the highly reactive metal lithium (Li). To keep the cathode stable when a battery is not in use, the lithium is combined in a metal oxide matrix, with different manufacturers using different combinations of metals.

Most EV manufacturers combine lithium with nickel, cobalt and manganese to create a Li-Ni-Mn-Co oxide matrix to form the cathode. Tesla substitutes aluminum (Al) for the manganese, yielding a Li-Ni-Co-Al oxide matrix for the cathode on their batteries. Tesla maintains that their formulae is more cost-effective as less cobalt is required.