Electric vehicles sometimes use brushless DC motors for superior performance and flat shape, though at a price because neodymium is used in their magnets. Nickel Metal Hydride batteries are used in most hybrid cars but the lanthanium is expensive.
Both elements are rare earths where China controls most of the extraction using clays in the north of the country. They even cut off supplies to Japan recently in an unrelated political dispute - so breaking China's necklock on supplies is now a major focus of industry outside China. For example, Japanese trading house Toyota Tsusho recently reached a strategic deal with India to secure rare earths.
Toyota Tsusho, which is partly owned by Toyota Motors reached an agreement with Indian Rare Earths, a state-owned group, to build a plant in the eastern state of Orissa that will secure Japan about 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes a year of the precious minerals by 2012.
"Toyota Tsusho has been surveying the rare earth resource potential around the world ... in order to secure supply sources outside of China," the group said in a statement.
Japanese trading houses have been racing to diversify their sources of rare earths since China, which produces 97%, cut export quotas earlier this year. This was followed by an unrelated clash in September between a Chinese fishing trawler and Japanese coast guard boats in disputed waters. Supplies have only started flowing again in the last few weeks, according to Japanese companies and officials.
Now Japanese companies have signed agreements with producers around the globe, including in the US, Australia and Latin America, to reduce dependence on China.
In November Sojitz, Japan's largest importer of rare earths, entered a "strategic alliance" with Lynas, an Australian-listed group, to secure 9,000 tonnes of rare earths a year over the next 10 years.
Molycorp of the USA sell rare earths to Mitsubishi Corp. Sumitomo Corp, Japan's third-biggest importer, will invest in production in the USA. In October, New Delhi and Tokyo agreed to co-operate in the development and reuse of rare earth materials within India.
India produces 2,700 tonnes of rare earths yearly and will triple its production by 2012. Toyota Tsusho said its Indian plant to be built next year, will extract rare earths by processing uranium and thorium mined along the shores of the eastern coast of India.
Elsewhere, Toyota Tsusho is developing a rare earths mine in Vietnam jointly with Sojitz, Japan's largest importer of the minerals, which is expected to start production in 2013 and is forecast to produce 7,000 tonnes of rare earths a year.
Electric component vehicle makers are gradually designing out rare earths. For example, the latest lithium batteries are replacing MiMH, which are best for high-energy density, pure Evs - China has clearly shot itself in the foot.
For more read http://www.idtechex.com/research/reports/electric_vehicles_in_east_asia_2011_2021_000251.asp
And attend: Future of Electric Vehicles Europe 2011.
