Ford cuts rare-earths use in new hybrid system

[Daox]

An interesting and quick little blurb about Ford decreasing rare earth metals due to switching over to lithium ion batteries in its new hybrids, but also decreasing their use in the PM (permanent magnet) motors they use.

Ford cuts rare-earths use in new hybrid system

What I found VERY interesting is this quote though:

The company says the Li-ion batteries are 30% less expensive, 25-30% smaller, and 50% lighter.

They're saying lithium is actually cheaper than NIMH which I have a bit of a hard time accepting. I know Toyota specifically kept using NIMH in the Prius line up because of cost reasons, especially in the Prius C where price was a large concern.

[Ryland]

I wonder how much of that cost is the battery cost and how much is the licensing agreements and so on to use the batteries, Toyota has contracts with Panasonic to make their battery packs and I would imagine that those contracts have some weird non competition agreements in them as well.
Lithium batteries have also been dropping a great deal in price, the lithium batteries on my desk right now cost me $316 per kwh and I'm not a large auto producer.
EV Comparison says that NiMH batteries cost $450 per KWH

[ksa8907]

Originally Posted by Ryland

I wonder how much of that cost is the battery cost and how much is the licensing agreements and so on to use the batteries, Toyota has contracts with Panasonic to make their battery packs and I would imagine that those contracts have some weird non competition agreements in them as well.
Lithium batteries have also been dropping a great deal in price, the lithium batteries on my desk right now cost me $316 per kwh and I'm not a large auto producer.
EV Comparison says that NiMH batteries cost $450 per KWH

if im not mistaken, toyota is actually government owned in japan. perhaps their japanese battery maker is being "asked" to supply batteries at cost.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by ksa8907

if im not mistaken, toyota is actually government owned in japan. perhaps their japanese battery maker is being "asked" to supply batteries at cost.

Don't tell that to their stock holders, here is a list starting with the largest... government of Japan is not listed.
Who owns Toyota Motor Corporation? 13F filings of top holders in TM - simplified 13F-HR filings at stockzoa

[Cobb]

The only worse feeling than the sound of a gun jamming or misfiring is discovering you wiped the charge from the magnets in your electric motor.

[oil pan 4]

They better do something because right now china provides something like 95% of rare earth metals.
By 2015 china is going to ban export of 2 or 3 of them and cut exports on most of the remaining.