Uranium market soars from Chinese demand

By Globe and Mail


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The uranium market is crackling again, set afire by ChinaÂ’s quest to secure nuclear fuel. And after watching the price of the radioactive metal crater for much of the past three years, investors are once again optimistic.

“Uranium is in a new bull market,” says Rob Lauzon, a portfolio manager who oversees energy investments at Middlefield Capital Corp.

“We have seen the spot price move from $40 US a pound [last March] to over $62… I think in the next two years, it will settle in that $70 to $75 range. If we look out five years from now, we can probably see $80- to $100-a-pound uranium.”

The spot price, which is determined by private contracts, hit bubble territory when it peaked at $136 a pound in June, 2007, as hedge funds put money on the metalÂ’s future. But the price plunged during the global credit crisis and remained depressed amid a flood of fresh supply from Kazakhstan in 2009.

Market watchers see higher uranium prices ahead because of tightening supply and rising demand, particularly from China and other emerging markets. Barring a major nuclear accident, demand is expected to remain buoyant as developed countries embrace nuclear power as a clean fuel.

Spot prices jumped in November after China signed three long-term contracts to buy a total of 140 million pounds of uranium from Cameco Corp., French nuclear giant Areva Group and KazakhstanÂ’s state-owned miner.

“It’s really the size of these individual deals that caught the market’s eye,” said Patricia Mohr, a commodities specialist at Bank of Nova Scotia. “China was tying up a large chunk of world supply between now and 2020. What will happen is that utilities in other countries are going to be keen to tie up new supply as well.”

As much as 80 per cent of current world uranium production has already been sold to utilities under long-term contracts, she said. Meanwhile, demand is expanding.

China is expected to double the number of its nuclear reactors to about 80 over the next few years, Ms. Mohr said. “We have been waiting for some time now for new emerging Asian countries to really hugely expand their nuclear power, and it appears that it is now taking place.”

She forecasts an average spot price for uranium of $70 a pound in 2012 as production from Kazakhstan slows that year and in 2013.

Salman Partners metals analyst Raymond Goldie is even more bullish on uranium. “The world’s supply of uranium is about 140 million pounds and demand is about 180 million pounds a year,” he said. “So there is a shortfall of about 40 million pounds.

“It looks we could face a shortage of uranium within a year and a half, if current stockpiles are something below 50 million pounds. On that basis, we could easily see the price of uranium double within a year or two.”

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3 Reasons Why Cheap Abundant Electricity Is Getting Closer To Reality

Renewable Energy Breakthroughs drive quantum dots solar efficiency, Air-gen protein nanowires harvesting humidity, and cellulose membranes for flow batteries, enabling printable photovoltaics, 24/7 clean power, and low-cost grid storage at commercial scale.

 

Key Points

Advances like quantum dot solar, Air-gen, and cellulose flow battery membranes that improve clean power and storage.

✅ Quantum dots raise solar conversion efficiency, are printable

✅ Air-gen harvests electricity from humidity with protein nanowires

✅ Cellulose membranes cut flow battery costs, aid grid storage

 

Science never sleeps. The quest to find new and better ways to do things continues in thousands of laboratories around the world. Today, the global economy is based on the use of electricity, and one analysis shows wind and solar potential could meet 80% of US demand, underscoring what is possible. If there was a way to harness all the energy from the sun that falls on the Earth every day, there would be enough of electricity available to meet the needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet with plenty left over. That day is getting closer all the time. Here are three reasons why.

Quantum Dots Make Better Solar Panels
According to Science Daily, researchers at the University of Queensland have set a new world record for the conversion of solar energy to electricity using quantum dots — which pass electrons between one another and generate electrical current when exposed to solar energy in a solar cell device. The solar devices they developed have beaten the existing solar conversion record by 25%.

“Conventional solar technologies use rigid, expensive materials. The new class of quantum dots the university has developed are flexible and printable,” says professor Lianzhou Wang, who leads the research team. “This opens up a huge range of potential applications, including the possibility to use it as a transparent skin to power cars, planes, homes and wearable technology. Eventually it could play a major part in meeting the United Nations’ goal to increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.”

“This new generation of quantum dots is compatible with more affordable and large-scale printable technologies,” he adds. “The near 25% improvement in efficiency we have achieved over the previous world record is important. It is effectively the difference between quantum dot solar cell technology being an exciting prospect and being commercially viable.” The research was published on January 20 in the journal Nature Energy.

Electricity From Thin Air
Science Daily also reports that researchers at UMass Amherst also have interesting news. They claim they created a device called an Air-gen, short for air powered generator. (Note: recently we reported on other research that makes electricity from rainwater.) The device uses protein nanowires created by a microbe called Geobacter. Those nanowires can generate electricity from thin air by tapping the water vapor present naturally in the atmosphere. “We are literally making electricity out of thin air. The Air-gen generates clean energy 24/7. It’s the most amazing and exciting application of protein nanowires yet,” researchers Jun Yao and Derek Lovely say. There work was published February 17 in the journal Nature.

The new technology developed in Yao’s lab is non-polluting, renewable, and low-cost. It can generate power even in areas with extremely low humidity such as the Sahara Desert. It has significant advantages over other forms of renewable energy including solar and wind, Lovley says, because unlike these other renewable energy sources, the Air-gen does not require sunlight or wind, and “it even works indoors,” a point underscored by ongoing grid challenges that slow full renewable adoption.

Yao says, “The ultimate goal is to make large-scale systems. For example, the technology might be incorporated into wall paint that could help power your home. Or, we may develop stand-alone air-powered generators that supply electricity off the grid, and in parallel others are advancing bio-inspired fuel cells that could complement such devices. Once we get to an industrial scale for wire production, I fully expect that we can make large systems that will make a major contribution to sustainable energy production. This is just the beginning of a new era of protein based electronic devices.”

Improved Membranes For Flow Batteries From Cellulose
Storing energy is almost as important to decarbonizing the environment as making it in the first place, with the rise of affordable solar batteries improving integration.  There are dozens if not hundreds of ways to store electricity and they all work to one degree or another. The difference between which ones are commercially viable and ones that are not often comes down to money.

Flow batteries — one approach among many, including fuel cells for renewable storage — use two liquid electrolytes — one positively charged and one negatively charged — separated by a membrane that allows electrons to pass back and forth between them. The problem is, the liquids are highly corrosive. The membranes used today are expensive — more than $1,300 per square meter.

Phys.org reports that Hongli Zhu, an assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University, has successfully created a membrane for use in flow batteries that is made from cellulose and costs just $147.68 per square meter. Reducing the cost of something by 90% is the kind of news that gets people knocking on your door.

The membrane uses nanocrystals derived from cellulose in combination with a polymer known as polyvinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene.  The naturally derived membrane is especially efficient because its cellular structure contains thousands of hydroxyl groups, which involve bonds of hydrogen and oxygen that make it easy for water to be transported in plants and trees.

In flow batteries, that molecular makeup speeds the transport of protons as they flow through the membrane. “For these materials, one of the challenges is that it is difficult to find a polymer that is proton conductive and that is also a material that is very stable in the flowing acid,” Zhu says.

Cellulose can be extracted from natural sources including algae, solid waste, and bacteria. “A lot of material in nature is a composite, and if we disintegrate its components, we can use it to extract cellulose,” Zhu says. “Like waste from our yard, and a lot of solid waste that we don’t always know what to do with.”

Flow batteries can store large amounts of electricity over long periods of time — provided the membrane between the storage tanks doesn’t break down. To store more electricity, simply make the tanks larger, which makes them ideal for grid storage applications where there is often plenty of room to install them. Slashing the cost of the membrane will make them much more attractive to renewable energy developers and help move the clean energy revolution forward.

The Takeaway
The fossil fuel crazies won’t give up easily. They have too much to lose and couldn’t care less if life on Earth ceases to exist for a few million years, just so long as they get to profit from their investments. But they are experiencing a death of a thousand cuts. None of the breakthroughs discussed above will end thermal power generation all by itself, but all of them, together with hundreds more just like them happening every day, every week, and every month, even as we confront clean energy's hidden costs across supply chains, are slowly writing the epitaph for fossil fuels.

And here’s a further note. A person of Chinese ancestry is the leader of all three research efforts reported on above. These are precisely the people being targeted by the United States government at the moment as it ratchets up its war on immigrants and anybody who cannot trace their ancestry to northern Europe. Imagine for a moment what will happen to America when researchers like them depart for countries where they are welcome instead of despised. 

 

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Pandemic has already cost Hydro-Québec $130 million, CEO says

Hydro-Que9bec 2020 Profit Outlook faces COVID-19 headwinds as revenue drops, U.S. Northeast export demand weakens, and clean-energy infrastructure plans shift toward domestic investments, energy efficiency, EV charging stations, and grid upgrades to stabilize net income.

 

Key Points

A forecast of COVID-19 revenue declines, weaker U.S. exports, and a shift to energy efficiency and grid upgrades.

✅ Q1 profit fell 14%; net income $1.53B vs $1.77B

✅ Exports to U.S. Northeast weaker; revenue off ~$130M Mar-Jun

✅ Strategy: energy efficiency, EV charging, grid, dam upgrades

 

Hydro-Québec expects the coronavirus pandemic to chop “hundreds of millions of dollars” off 2020 profits, its new chief executive officer said.

COVID-19 has depressed revenue by about $130 million between March and June, Sophie Brochu said Monday, as residential electricity use rose even while overall consumption dropped. Shrinking electricity exports to the U.S. northeast are poised to compound the shortfall, she said.

“What we’re living through is not small. The impacts are real,” Brochu said on a conference call with reporters, noting that utilities such as Hydro One supported Ontario's COVID-19 response at the height of the pandemic. “I’m not talking about a billion. I’m talking about hundreds of millions. We have no idea how quickly the economy will restart. As we approach the fall we will have a better view.”

Hydro-Québec last month reported a 14-per-cent drop in first-quarter profit and warned full-year results would fall short of targets as the COVID-19 crisis weighs on power demand. Net income in the quarter was $1.53 billion compared with $1.77 billion a year ago, the company said.

Canada’s biggest electricity producer had earlier been targeting 2020 profit of between $2.8 billion and $3 billion, according to its current strategic plan and corporate structure currently in place.

The first quarter was the utility’s last under former CEO Eric Martel, who left to take over at jetmaker Bombardier Inc. Brochu, who previously ran Énergir, replaced him April 6.

To boost exports over time, Brochu said Hydro-Québec will look to strengthen ties with neighbours such as Ontario, where the Hydro One CEO is working to repair relations with government and investors, and the U.S. The CEO said she’s heartened by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s call last month for new power lines from Canada and upstate to promote clean energy.

“This is a clear, encouraging signal that must express itself through very concrete negotiations,” she said. “The United States is our backyard. This is true for Ontario, where key system staff lockdowns were even contemplated, and the Atlantic provinces as well. This is our ecosystem, and we intend to build on our footprint, on the relationships that we have.”

Though stricter environmental hurdles make it more complicated to get power lines built today than a decade ago, the CEO insists it’s still possible to sell electricity to neighbouring U.S. states.

“Is it more difficult today to build energy projects? The answer is yes,” she said. “Does this clog up the U.S. northeast market? Not at all. I believe this federation of ecosystems is very promising.”

In the meantime, Hydro-Québec is planning to speed up investments at home — for example, by building new charging stations that will be needed to serve a growing fleet of electric cars. The utility will also upgrade some of its Montreal-area facilities, as well as its massive dams on the Manicouagan River, Brochu said. The investments will result in additional capacity.

“Today we need to put water in the pump of Quebec, so we will concentrate our human and financial efforts here,” she said. “We are needed in Quebec.” 

Hydro-Québec is stepping up efforts to promote energy efficiency among its customer base, amid retroactive billing concerns, which Brochu said could postpone the need to build large dams.

“We have to move towards ‘no-regret moves.’ What’s a no-regret move? It’s energy efficiency,” Brochu said earlier Monday during a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, noting that Ontario debated peak rate relief for self-isolating customers. “This is healthy, it’s fundamental and it will contribute to Quebec’s economic rebound by lowering energy costs.”

Brochu also pledged to build a more diverse workforce after the company said last week that 8.2 per cent of staff belong to “visible and ethnic” minorities.

“This can be improved on,” she said. “What I’m expressing today is my determination, and that of the management team, to move the needle.”

 

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India to Ration Coal Supplies as Electricity Demand Surges

India Coal Supply Rationing redirects shipments from high-inventory power plants to stations facing shortages as electricity demand surges, inventories fall, and outages persist; Coal India, NTPC imports, and smaller mines bolster domestic supply.

 

Key Points

A temporary policy redirecting coal from high-stock plants to shortage-hit plants amid rising demand

✅ Shipments halted 1 week to plants with >14 days coal stock

✅ Smaller mines asked to raise output; NTPC to import 270,000 tons

✅ Outages at Adani and Tata Mundra units pressure domestic supply

 

India will ration coal supplies to power plants with high inventories to direct more shipments to stations battling shortages, even as shortages ease in some regions, as surging demand outstrips production.

Supplies to plants with more than two weeks’ coal inventory will be halted for a week, a team headed by federal Coal Secretary Alok Kumar decided on Saturday, the Power Ministry said in a statement. The government has also requested smaller mines to raise output to supplement shipments from state miner Coal India Ltd., and is taking steps to get nuclear back on track to diversify the energy mix.

A jump in electricity consumption spurred by a reviving economy and an extended summer, after an earlier steep demand decline in India, is driving demand for coal, which helps produce about 70% of the nation’s electricity. The surge in demand complicates India’s clean-energy transition efforts amid solar supply headwinds that cloud near-term alternatives, and may bolster arguments favoring the country’s dependence on coal to fuel economic growth.

“There’s no doubt India will continue to need coal for stable power for years,” said Rupesh Sankhe, vice president at Elara Capital India Pvt. in Mumbai. “Plants that meet environmental standards and are able to produce power efficiently will see utilization rising, but I doubt we’re going to have many new coal plants.”  

Coal stockpiles at the country’s power plants had fallen to 14.7 million tons as of Aug. 24, tumbling 62% from a year earlier, according to the latest data from the Central Electricity Authority. More than 88 gigawatts of generation plants, about half the capacity monitored by the power ministry, had inventories of six days or less as of that date, the data show. Power demand jumped 10.5% in July from a year earlier, even as global electricity use dipped 15% during the pandemic, according to the government.
Outages at some large plants that run on imported coal have increased the burden on those that burn domestic supplies, aiding shortfalls.

Adani Power Ltd. had almost 2 gigawatts of capacity in outage at its Mundra plant in Gujarat at the start of the week, while Tata Power Co. Ltd. had shut 80% of its 4-gigawatt plant in the same town for maintenance, power ministry data show.

NTPC Ltd., the largest power generator, will import the 270,000 tons of coal it left out from contracts placed earlier to mitigate the fuel shortage, reflecting higher imported coal volumes this fiscal, the power ministry said in a separate statement.

 

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Price Spikes in Ireland Fuel Concerns Over Dispatachable Power Shortages in Europe

ISEM Price Volatility reflects Ireland-Northern Ireland grid balancing pressures, driven by dispatchable power shortages, day-ahead market dynamics, renewable shortfalls, and interconnector constraints, affecting intraday trading, operational reserves, and cross-border electricity flows.

 

Key Points

ISEM price volatility is Irish power price swings from grid balancing stress and limited dispatchable capacity.

✅ One-off spike linked to plant outage and low renewables

✅ Day-ahead market settling; intraday trading integration pending

✅ Interconnectors and reserves vital to manage adequacy

 

Irish grid-balancing prices soared to €3,774 ($4,284) per megawatt-hour last month amid growing concerns over dispatchable power capacity across Europe.

The price spike, triggered by an alert regarding generation losses, came only four months after Ireland and Northern Ireland launched an Integrated Single Electricity Market (ISEM) designed to make trading more competitive and improve power distribution across the island.

Evie Doherty, senior consultant for Ireland at Cornwall Insight, a U.K.-based energy consultancy, said significant price volatility was to be expected while ISEM is still settling down, aligning with broader 2019 grid edge trends seen across markets.

When the U.K. introduced a single market for Great Britain, called British Electricity Trading and Transmission Arrangements, in 2005, it took at least six months for volatility to subside, Doherty said.

In the case of ISEM, “it will take more time to ascertain the exact drivers behind the high prices,” she said. “We are being told that the day-ahead market is functioning as expected, but it will take time to really be able to draw conclusions on efficiency.”

Ireland and Northern Ireland have been operating with a single market “very successfully” since 2007, said Doherty. Although each jurisdiction has its own regulatory authority, they make joint decisions regarding the single market.

ISEM, launched in October 2018, was designed to help include Ireland and Northern Ireland day-ahead electricity prices in a market pricing system called the European Union Pan-European Hybrid Electricity Market Integration Algorithm.

In time, ISEM should also allow the Irish grids to participate in European intraday markets, and recent examples like Ukraine's grid connection underline the pace of integration efforts across Europe. At present, they are only able to do so with Great Britain. “The idea was to...integrate energy use and create more efficient flows between jurisdictions,” Doherty said.

EirGrid, the Irish transmission system operator, has reported that flows on its interconnector with Northern Ireland are more efficient than before, she said.

The price spike happened when the System Operator for Northern Ireland issued an alert for an unplanned plant outage at a time of low renewable output and constraints on the north-south tie-line with Ireland, according to a Cornwall Insight analysis.

 

Not an isolated event

Although it appears to have been a one-off event, there are increasing worries that a shortage of dispatchable power could lead to similar situations elsewhere across Europe, as seen in Nordic grid constraints recently.

Last month, newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported that German industrial concerns had been forced to curtail more than a gigawatt of power consumption to maintain operational reserves on the grid in December, after renewable production fell short of expectations and harsh weather impacts strained systems elsewhere.

Paul-Frederik Bach, a Danish energy consultant, has collected data showing that this was not an isolated incident. The FAZ report said German aluminum smelters had been forced to cut back on energy use 78 times in 2018, he noted.

Energy availability was also a concern last year in Belgium, where six out of seven nuclear reactors had been closed for maintenance. The closures forced Belgium to import 23 percent of its electricity from neighboring countries, Bach reported.

In a separate note, Bach revealed that 11 European countries that were net importers of energy had boosted their imports by 26 percent between 2017 and 2018. It is important to note that electricity imports do not necessarily imply a shortage of power, he stated.

However, it is also true that many European grid operators are girding themselves for a future in which dispatchable power is scarcer than today.

EirGrid, for example, expects dispatchable generation and interconnection capacity to drop from 10.6 gigawatts in 2018 to 9 gigawatts in 2027.

The Swedish transmission system operator Svenska Kraftnät, meanwhile, is forecasting winter peak power deficits could rise from 400 megawatts currently to 2.5 gigawatts in 2020-21.

Research conducted by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, suggests power adequacy will fall across most of Europe up to 2025, although perhaps not to a critical degree.

The continent’s ability to deal with the problem will be helped by having more efficient trading systems, Bach told GTM. That means developments such as ISEM could be a step in the right direction, despite initial price volatility.

In the long run, however, Europe will need to make sure market improvements are accompanied by investments in HVDC technology and interconnectors and reserve capacity. “Somewhere there must be a production of electricity, even when there is no wind,” said Bach. 

 

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Electricity users in Newfoundland have started paying for Muskrat Falls

Muskrat Falls rate mitigation offsets Newfoundland Power's rate stabilization decrease as NL Hydro begins cost recovery; Public Utilities Board approval enables collections while Labrador-Island Link nears commissioning, stabilizing electricity rates despite megaproject delays, overruns.

 

Key Points

Muskrat Falls rate mitigation is NL Hydro's cost recovery via power rates to stabilize bills as commissioning nears.

✅ Offsets 6.4% decrease with a 6.1% rate increase

✅ About 6% now funds NL Hydro's rate mitigation

✅ Collections begin as Labrador-Island Link nears commissioning

 

With their July electricity bill, Newfoundland Power customers have begun paying for Muskrat Falls, though a lump-sum credit was also announced to offset costs and bills haven't significantly increased — yet.

In a July newsletter, Newfoundland Power said electricity bills were set to decrease by 6.4 per cent as part of the annual rate stabilization adjustment, which reflects the cost of electricity generation.

Instead, that decrease has been offset by a 6.1 increase in electricity rates so Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro can begin recovering the cost of Muskrat Falls, with a $5.2-billion federal package also underpinning the project, the $13-billion hydroelectric megaproject that is billions over budget and years behind schedule.

That means for residential customers, electricity rates will decrease to 12.346 cents per kilowatt, though the basic customer charge will go up slightly from $15.81 to $15.83. According to an N.L. Hydro spokesperson, about six per cent of electricity bills will now go toward what it calls a "rate mitigation fund." 

N.L. Hydro claims victory in Muskrat Falls arbitration dispute with Astaldi
Software troubles blamed for $260M Muskrat Falls cost increase, with N.L. power rates stable for now
The spokesperson said N.L. Hydro is expecting the rate increase to result in $43 million this year, according to a recent financial update from the energy corporation — a tiny fraction of the project's cost. 

N.L. Hydro asked the Public Utilities Board to approve the rate increase, a process similar to Nova Scotia's recent 14% approval by its regulator, in May. In a letter, Energy, Industry and Technology Minister Andrew Parsons supported the increase, though he asked N.L. Hydro to keep electricity rates "as close to current levels as possible. 

Province modifies order in council
Muskrat Falls is not yet fully online — largely due to software problems with the Labrador-Island Link transmission line — and an order in council dictated that ratepayers on the island of Newfoundland would not begin paying for the project until the project was fully commissioned. 

The provincial government modified that order in council so N.L. Hydro can begin collecting costs associated with Muskrat Falls once the project is "nearing" commissioning.

In June, N.L. Hydro said the project was expected to finally be completed by the end of the year.

In an interview with CBC News, Progressive Conservative interim leader David Brazil said the decision to begin recovering the cost of Muskrat Falls from consumers should have been delayed.

"There was an opportunity here for people to get some reprieve when it came to their electricity bills and this administration chose not to do that, not to help the people while they're struggling," he said.

In a statement, Parsons said reducing the rate was not an option, and would have resulted in increased borrowing costs for Muskrat Falls.

"Reducing the rate for one year to have it increase significantly the following year is not consistent with rate mitigation and also places an increased financial burden on taxpayers one year from now," Parsons said.

Decision 'reasonable': Consumer advocate
Brazil said his party didn't know the payments from Muskrat Falls would start in July, and criticized the government for not being more transparent.

A person wearing a blue shirt and black blazer stands outside on a lawn.
N.L. consumer advocate Dennis Browne says it makes sense to begin recouping the cost of Muskrat Falls. (Garrett Barry/CBC)
Newfoundland and Labrador consumer advocate Dennis Browne said the decision to begin collecting costs from consumers was "reasonable."

"We're into a financial hole due to Muskrat Falls, and what has happened is in order to stabilize rates, we have gone into rate stabilization efforts," he said.

In February, the provincial and federal governments signed a complex agreement to shield ratepayers aimed at softening the worst of the financial impact from Muskrat Falls. Browne noted even with the agreement, the provincial government will have to pay hundreds of millions in order to stabilize electricity rates.

"Muskrat Falls would cost us $0.23 a kilowatt, and that is out of the range of affordability for most people, and that's why we're into rate mitigation," he said. "This was part of a rate mitigation effort, and I accepted it as part of that."

 

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US Automakers Will Build 30,000 Electric Vehicle Chargers

Automaker EV Fast-Charging Network will deploy 30,000 DC fast chargers across US and Canada, supporting CCS and NACS, integrating Tesla compatibility, easing range anxiety, and expanding highway and urban charging infrastructure with amenities and uptime.

 

Key Points

A $1B joint venture by seven automakers to build 30,000 DC fast chargers with CCS and NACS across the US and Canada.

✅ 30,000 DC fast chargers by 2030 across US and Canada

✅ Supports CCS and NACS; Tesla compatibility planned

✅ Launching mid-2024; focus on highways, urban hubs, amenities

 

Seven major automakers announced a plan on Wednesday to nearly double the number of fast chargers in the United States in an effort to address one of the main reasons that people hesitate to buy electric cars, even as the age of electric cars accelerates.

The carmakers — BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group and Stellantis — will initially invest at least $1 billion in a joint venture that will build 30,000 charging ports on major highways and other locations in the United States and Canada.

The United States and Canada have about 36,000 fast chargers — those that can replenish a drained battery in 30 minutes or less. In some sparsely populated areas, such chargers can be hundreds of miles apart. Surveys show that fear about not being able to find a charger during longer journeys is a major reason that some car buyers are reluctant to buy electric vehicles.

Sales of electric vehicles have risen quickly in the United States as the market hits an inflection point, but there are signs that demand is softening. As a result, Tesla, Ford and other carmakers have cut prices in recent months and are offering incentives. Popular models that had long waiting lists last year are now available in a few days or weeks.

Major carmakers are investing billions of dollars to manufacture electric vehicles and batteries and to establish supplier networks. Having staked their futures on the technology, they have a strong incentive to ensure that electric vehicles catch on with car buyers, even as gas-electric hybrids help bridge the transition.

The chargers installed by the joint venture will have plugs designed for the connections used by most carmakers other than Tesla, as well as the standard developed by Tesla, amid fights for control over charging, that Ford, G.M. and other companies have said they intend to switch to in 2025.

“The better experience people have, the faster E.V. adoption will grow,” Mary T. Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, said in a statement.

The seven automakers plan to formalize the joint venture and announce its name by the end of the year, Chris Martin, a Honda spokesman, said. The first chargers will begin operating around the middle of 2024, he said, with all 30,000 in place by the end of the decade.

The joint venture is open to adding other partners, he said. Among major automakers, Ford was a notable absence from the announcement on Wednesday. The company said in a statement on Wednesday that it would continue to iThe partnership also does not include Volkswagen. The company is a majority shareholder of Electrify America, one of the largest fast-charging providers.

Tesla accounts for more than half the fast chargers in the United States and has said it will open its networks to other car brands, though, so far, it has only made fewer than 100 ports available. Owners of Ford and G.M. vehicles, among others, will be able to connect to 12,000 Tesla fast chargers using an adapter beginning next year. In 2025, Ford and G.M. plan to make models designed to take the Tesla plug without an adapter.

The decision by the seven carmakers to form the joint venture is an indication that they do not intend to rely solely on Tesla, which dominates sales of electric vehicles, for charging.

The chargers being built by the joint venture will be concentrated in urban areas and along major highways, especially those used most heavily by vacationers and other travelers, the companies said in a joint statement. Charging stations will be close to restrooms, restaurants and other amenities. The partners said they would try to take advantage of federal and state funds available for charging infrastructure amid questions about whether the U.S. has the power to charge it at scale.

Most electric vehicle owners charge at home and rarely need to use public chargers. Home chargers typically replenish batteries overnight. Most public chargers, about 125,000 in the United States and Canada, also operate relatively slowly — taking four to 10 hours to do the job.nvest in its own network, which allows Ford owners to charge from a variety of providers with one mobile phone app.

 

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