Tesla developing clean teach that doesn’t rely on rare earths
Hui, 4/5/2023 (April 5, 2023, Mary, “The West is trying to cut China out of rare earths—and China is noticing; China is facing heated competition as the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan collaborate on rare earths,” https://qz.com/how-the-west-is-reducing-china-rare-earth-dependence-1850232930, JMP))
One solution for the West is to improve and develop technologies that require fewer rare earths, to better shrink any dependence on China. For example, Tesla recently announced that its next-generation motors will use rare earths-free magnets, although technical details are sparse.
Some industry analysts believe that Tesla’s move will have minimal effect on the market for neodymium and dysprosium, the key rare earths in the most common EV magnets. But Stan Trout, founder of the rare earths and magnetic materials consultancy Spontaneous Materials, thinks that Tesla’s decision can lead to ripple effects.
“Reducing demand for neodymium is actually a very powerful thing because you don’t have to process as much ore,” he said. “A small reduction...just takes a bit of the froth out of the market place, and so that’s very helpful. Will Tesla’s do that? I can’t answer that yet.”
But at the same time, other countries will have to accept a reality: that diversifying their rare earth supply chains away from China will come with higher costs. Automakers, for example, may have to pay a premium for non-Chinese sourced rare earth magnets, passing those costs onto consumers through a higher sticker price on their cars.