Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveils a surprise new car: A new ridiculously fast Roadster

That is the longest range of any electric vehicle ever, he said. "It will do the
quarter mile in 8.9 seconds," Musk said. "This will the first time that any
production car has broken 9 seconds in the quarter mile." The car will seat four
people. Customers can reserve a model with a $50,000 deposit. Those who want to buy
one of the 1,000 Founders Series Roadsters will have to shell out $250,000 upfront.
The car is the second version of the original Roadster, Tesla's first production
car. The company made the Roadster from 2008 to 2012. "People have asked us for a
long time, 'when are you going to make a new Roadster?'" Musk said. "We are making
it now." The car is expected to be available in 2020.

Tesla surprise: Musk unveils worlds fastest production car along with electric
semi-truck

HAWTHORNE Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Thursday night sprung a surprise on the world,
using the launch of a new electric semi-truck to announce what he said will be the
worlds fastest production car, a new Tesla Roadster. I wont say what the actual
speed is, but its above 250 mph, Musk told a crowd assembled at the companys
design studio just southwest of Los Angeles in Hawthorne. The point of this is to
give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars. Musk showed off a prototype of the new
vehicle, a convertible which he said will go from zero to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds and
from zero to 100 mph in 4.2 seconds, as well as covering a quarter mile in 8.9
seconds. These are all world records, Musk said. The battery pack will allow the
three-motor, four-seat car to travel 620 miles on one charge, enough to drive from
San Francisco to Los Angeles and back, Musk said. That will make the vehicle the
first production electric car to cover 1,000 kilometers on a single charge, he
said. The Roadster, a new edition of the Palo Alto electric car makers first
vehicle, will be available in 2020, Musk said. He boasted of roomy luggage storage,
but warned that you cant put giant people in the rear seat. Tesla had kept quiet
about the Roadster, with Musk reappearing after announcing the new electric semi-
truck. Musk touted the sleek, slope-nosed semi guaranteed to go a million miles
without breaking down as better than diesel in every way. With the launch, Tesla
goes after a market for traditional and mostly diesel-powered trucks estimated to
be approaching $34 billion a year. From day one, having a Tesla semi will beat a
diesel truck on economics, Musk claimed. Its got a better drag coefficient than
a supercar. If a driver has a medical emergency, the truck will automatically come
to a gradual stop, and can call for help if the driver doesnt respond to a prompt,
Musk said. The trucks low center of gravity makes for good handling and roll-over
prevention, and its technology makes jack-knifing impossible, Musk said. Teslas
new electric semi-truck (courtesy of Tesla) The semi has automated-driving
features including lane-keeping and automatic braking, and has four independent
motors, he said. Even if you have only two of the motors active, itll still beat
a diesel truck, he said. On one charge, Teslas truck can travel 500 miles at 60
mph, carrying the maximum allowed weight in the U.S., Musk said, adding that 80
percent of trucking routes are shorter than 250 miles. Production begins in 2019,
he said. Order now, you get the truck in two years, he said. The prices of the
truck and Roadster were not disclosed. Market research firm Markets and Markets has
estimated that the global market for traditional semi-trucks will hit $34.3 billion
by 2020. On Thursday, as Tesla was about to announce its electric semi, an advocacy
group for diesel vehicle and engine manufacturers, diesel refiners and device
makers issued a statement supporting the use of diesel-powered vehicles for
trucking. More than 4 million semi-trucks travel Americas roads, with more than 98
percent of them diesel powered, the Diesel Technology Forum said. Diesel is the
most energy efficient internal combustion engine, said Allen Schaeffer, the
groups executive director. It has achieved dominance as the technology of choice
in the trucking industry over many decades and challenges from many other fuel
types. Still, today, diesel offers a unique combination of unmatched features:
proven fuel efficiency, economical operation, power, reliability, durability,
availability, easy access to fueling and service facilities, and now near-zero
emissions performance. This photo provided by Tesla shows the interior overview of
the new electric semitractor-trailer unveiled on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017. (Tesla
photo) Teslas two-vehicle launch comes as the company faces legal, financial and
production issues. Its most recent quarterly earnings report beat analysts
expectations with $2.98 billion in revenue, but revealed a $619 million loss and a
three-month production delay for the entry-level Model 3 sedan. The company this
week was hit with a third lawsuit alleging racial discrimination at the company,
which Tesla said it had no role in. Like the Model 3, Teslas live-streamed
announcement of the new truck was delayed. Originally scheduled for 8 p.m., the
company tweeted out just before then that it would go ahead at 8:15 p.m. It started
at about 8:25 p.m. Autotrader analyst Michelle Krebs said Thursday that the
transport-truck market was ripe for change, by electrification, self-driving and
connected, but she noted that Daimler beat Tesla to the punch with the
announcement of its electric semi, the E-Fuso Vision One, in October. The
advantages held by standard semis could limit the scale of electric trucks
operations, said Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book Managing Editor Michael Harley,
who said Tesla had incorrectly aimed its sights. Diesel fuel is readily
available and relatively efficient for heavy long-haul trucks that cruise open
highways at a fixed speed, Harley said. A more appropriate target for the
electric vehicle maker would be the short-haul.

Metal recyclers prepare for electric car revolution

LONDON (Reuters) - Recycling companies are honing processes to extract metals from
old batteries more cheaply and efficiently so they can capitalize on an expected
shortfall in materials such as cobalt and lithium when sales of electric cars take
off. An employee sorts used primary non-rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries before
being recycled by the German recycling firm Accurec in Krefeld, Germany, November
16, 2017. Picture taken November 16, 2017. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay The main
obstacle recyclers face now is a shortage of spent batteries to recycle to make
their technology cost-effective, but those at the forefront of the industry are
confident the supply, and profits, will come. The value of lithium carbonate and
natural or synthetic graphite has doubled or tripled in the last three or four
years, becoming the most valuable materials besides cobalt in the automotive
battery, Albrecht Melber, co-managing director of German recycling firm Accurec,
said. There are big values that can be recycled in the future. Electric vehicle
sales are expected to pass 14 million a year by 2025 from less than a million now,
fuelling a surge in the consumption of battery materials.(Graphic - Electric
vehicles on the rise: tmsnrt.rs/2eNwQoZ) Data specialist Benchmark Mineral
Intelligence predicts the industry will need an extra 30,000 tonnes of cobalt and
81,000 tonnes of lithium a year to meet demand by 2021. Commodity research group
CRU expects 11,600 tonnes of cobalt to come from recycling in 2021, up from 7,110 a
year now, and 24,900 tonnes by 2026, accounting for 9.7 percent and 17.9 percent of
the total market supply respectively. In China, where electric vehicle sales topped
half a million last year, recyclers are getting ready to deal with a mountain of
battery waste and others also see opportunities. A 1,000-pound lithium cobalt
battery contains about $6,000 worth of cathode material at the top end of the value
chain and about $1,700 for a nickel-cobalt-aluminum battery at the low end, said
Larry Reaugh, chief executive of Canadian metals recycler American Manganese
(AMY.V). If this equated to mining you would have a very high grade feedstock, he
said. Were mining batteries, you might say. COBALT PRESSURE Most electric cars
are powered by lithium NMC batteries which use a cathode composed of nickel,
manganese and cobalt and a graphite anode. Mining enough cobalt to meet demand is a
particular concern as most of the worlds supplies come from Democratic Republic of
Congo, where mining areas are prone to conflict. The price of cobalt COB-CATH-LON
has more than doubled so far this year. (Graphic - Demand for battery materials:
reut.rs/2zzGHaG) Supplies of lithium, mainly mined in Chile, are under far less
pressure at the moment and new production is due to come on stream in Argentina and
Australia. But concern the supply of lithium in battery-ready form will struggle to
keep pace with electric car sales has pushed prices up more than 30 percent to a
record $12,000 a tonne this year. Besides a shortage of old batteries to recycle,
companies also face challenges extracting lithium in a reusable form. Most
recyclers heat old batteries to high temperatures to retrieve metals, a process
known as pyrometallurgy. But this generally only yields cobalt, and sometimes
nickel, while lithium is more difficult and expensive to extract. The cost of
recycling varies widely, but to be economical, CRU estimates it would need to be
transformed back into lithium carbonate at a maximum cost of $7,000 a tonne. For
now, lithium usually ends up in waste slag, which can be used as a building
material, or is thrown away. But with the price of all these metals rising, that
picture may change. MATERIAL MATRIX Technological advances are key to retrieving
more waste metal from batteries and some companies say they have developed ways to
get lithium that will come into their own once theres a steady supply of spent
batteries to recycle. Pyrolised Lithium-ion accus of laptops, smartphones and accu-
powered craftsmen tools are pictured at the German recycling firm Accurec in
Krefeld, Germany, November 16, 2017. Picture taken November 16, 2017.
REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay Umicore (UMI.BR) uses a combination of pyrometallurgy and a
chemical process known as hydrometallurgy to retrieve lithium and rare earths from
slag, as well as extracting cobalt, nickel, and copper. A battery is a complex
material matrix, Umicore says. However, our process allows (us) to separate and
concentrate the lithium in one process step, and yields alloys with cobalt, nickel
and copper. Umicore operates a pilot plant with a 7,000-tonne capacity that can
process some 35,000 electric vehicle batteries a year. Analysts say the Belgian
company, a well-established materials recycler, is by far the most developed
lithium ion battery processor in Europe. For investors to play the recycling
theme, for now the best way is Umicore, said Tobias Bischoff, a portfolio manager
at de Pury Pictet Turrettini & Cie who advises NSF Wealth Managements Global
New Mobility fund. U.S. company Retriev Technologies has been recycling lithium ion
batteries at its plant in Trail, British Columbia, since 2002, recovering cobalt,
nickel and copper. It expanded a facility in Ohio to process lithium ion batteries
two years ago. Between 2012 and the end of last year production at its Trail
facility doubled, with the plant processing about 1,200 tonnes of batteries. The
company expects growth at a similar rate over the next five years, vice president
Todd Coy said. Other companies are also pushing into lithium ion battery recycling.
Accurec now has a 1,000-tonne capacity demonstration plant for recycling car
batteries at its Krefeld facility in western Germany, though it says volumes remain
small. Australias Neometals (NMT.AX) is building a pilot plant in Montreal, aiming
to develop processes tested in laboratories and small-scale plants for extracting
cobalt, lithium and nickel. Also in Canada, American Manganese says it can retrieve
100 percent of the lithium - as well as cobalt, nickel, manganese and aluminum -
from batteries, using technology originally developed to process low-grade
manganese ores. It has completed a proof of concept for its process and has a
patent pending. A pilot plant is the next step. SECOND LIFE But commercial
development for recyclers is tough without the economies of scale that will come
with a greater supply of spent batteries. Retriev, for example, says large volumes
will be key to developing lithium recycling using hydrometallurgy. At current
commodity prices we need approximately 4,000 tonnes per year of batteries to
justify the estimated capital costs, Retrievs Coy said, more than three times its
current processing volumes. We are confident this volume will be coming in the
future - beyond 2023 - but the market is not there yet. While electronic car sales
are growing fast, lithium ion car batteries last eight to 10 years on average,
meaning it will be the best part of a decade before significant numbers are spent.
American Manganeses Reaugh says it is planning to focus initially on recycling
material from faulty batteries to get around the wait for working batteries to
expire. Even when they do, battery makers say many will have a second life as grid
storage, potentially for the best part of another decade. German carmaker BMW
(BMWG.DE), for example, says its batteries are specifically designed for that
purpose. Grid storage systems use batteries no longer performing at levels to power
cars to store electricity which can be used to even out fluctuations in supply and
demand. Still, not everyone is convinced grid storage will put the brakes on
recycling. At the end of the day its going to come down to whether the raw
materials in the battery are worth more than the battery as grid storage, CRU
analyst George Heppel said. I think there will be a better incentive to recycle
the materials, and from there build a more efficient battery with new technology.
Umicore says it expects volumes of spent batteries to rise above 100,000 tonnes a
year in the next decade, with massive volumes coming onto the market around 2025.
Once that happens, the opportunities for recyclers to capitalize will take off. It
definitely is a market that could become materially important, said portfolio
manager Bischoff. Weve looked at it, and well look at it again. Reporting by
Jan Harvey; editing by David Clarke