



Nissan Leaf

Sources: The Detroit News, Toyota

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RE: Heat? We don't need no stinking heat!
By wordsworm on 3/20/2012 4:43:46 PM , Rating: 1
What pisses me off is having to pay for the wars required to wage in order to secure enough oil to feed all the hungry gas engines around the world. Folks who rail against electric and tax breaks always forget about the cost of going to war in Iraq to take control over their oil.

RE: Heat? We don't need no stinking heat!
By jimbojimbo on 3/20/2012 5:44:45 PM , Rating: 2
Let's go to war over rare earth metals instead. Except we'll lose that one.

By lennylim on 3/20/2012 6:02:25 PM , Rating: 2
Except we don't need to. We have supplies of raw rare earth metals, it's just cheaper buying them from China up to now.

RE: Heat? We don't need no stinking heat!
By Keeir on 3/20/2012 6:06:26 PM , Rating: 2
You do release that very little rare earth metals have to be used in a Lithium based battery right? Electric Car Motors don't have to use rare earth either...

Maybe you mean Lithium? Which is not a rare earth metal and primarily comes from Chile currently.

RE: Heat? We don't need no stinking heat!
By bobsmith1492 on 3/20/2012 7:47:34 PM , Rating: 2
What alternatives are there to neodymium for high-performance electric motors?

RE: Heat? We don't need no stinking heat!
By Keeir on 3/20/2012 8:44:21 PM , Rating: 2
Tesla Model S AC induction motor

By Keeir on 3/20/2012 11:32:06 PM , Rating: 2
Sorry I was in a hurry

Tesla claims thier AC motors and Battery use little/no rare earth

Rare earth Materials are needed in NiMH batteries (Prius, Civic, etc) and some powerful/compact motors.

Volt for instances uses ~4 lbs of neodymium I believe. (I haven't taken it apart or see a supply sheet, but its a permanent magnet type AC motor)

Now, Neodymium is hardly rare. There are large deposits all over the world.

Currently know reserves of Neodymium exist in the billions of lbs.

Let China play "hardball" with "rare" earth minerals. It will hopefully give all the other nations a kick in the pants to start thier own operations. I know there are a few canadian companies out there just a year or two from market (Like Avalon) on some Rare Earth products.

By topkill on 3/20/2012 11:32:43 PM , Rating: 2
Switch Reluctance Motors (SMR) are also becoming popular because of their power and efficiency potential....and they use no fancy metals of any type. Instead they use steel, aluminium and copper which are all available in good old America.

RE: Heat? We don't need no stinking heat!
By Manch on 3/21/2012 11:18:31 AM , Rating: 1
What pisses me off is folks who rail against oil, and are blindly pushing these electric vehicles as the answer to reduce oil consumption dont realize that a lot of the oil is used by powerplants to create the electricity. about 44% of the power produced in the USA is from oil, and the need would only grow if we went wholesale to these electric vehicles. Then theres the issue of rare earth materials on top of that

And then theres the tried arguement of Iraq War is for oil. Iraq supplies less than 5% of our oil so enough with this BS arguement already.

Also, the reason people rail against these tax breaks is becasue they only help a few people for the amount of money they flush down the drain. This isnt a tax break for nuclear power, its a tax break for a few people that want to "feel godd" about helping the environment. I dont want my taxes to subsidize peoples f#ckin feelings.

By MoFW on 3/22/2012 5:32:50 AM , Rating: 2
Sources of U.S. Electricity Generation 2011:
Coal 42%
Natural Gas 25%
Nuclear 19%
Renewable 13%
Petroleum <1%

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration:

