Ford has announced its new EV plant in Valencia
The car rental industry is ready to move on
The transition from petrol cars to EVs in the rental car industry is beginning, CNBC reports. Hertz’s $4.2 billion deal with Tesla will see the rental car company gain 100,000 EVs by the end of 2022. Other companies have followed suit: Enterprise Holdings and Avis Budget Group are also investing in EVs for their fleet.
Hertz also says that it believes that 30% of its fleet will be EVs by the end of 2024, and in order to promote that, has even created a webpage on its website aimed at educating drivers about EVs.
Hertz is targeting corporate market with its EV strategy, a move that seems to be in line with the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) objectives that corporate companies seem to be adopting. To address the U. S’s lackluster charging network, rental companies are also building their own charging stations. A key part of the US government’s infrastructure bill, $7.5 billion is going to increasing the number of charging stations available.
China’s EV battery supply chain might be using forced labor
Chinese companies producing raw materials for EVs might be using forced labor. In a report by the New York Times, a mining company called Xingjiang Nonferrous Metal Industry was found to have employed Uyghurs in a work transfer program. The Chinese government has admitted to moving Uyghurs from the south of Xingjiang to the north in order to work, CNBC reports. Academic publications from China are claiming that these labor transfers are beneficial to stopping the “negative” impact of religion.
While China has denied many times that it enslaves or imprisons Uyghurs, the social media for Xingjiang Nonferrous posted that by educating its workers on “eradicating religious extremism,” they were helping them to become more patriotic. China has faced much criticism over its treatment of Uyghurs, with human rights groups believing that the Chinese government has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will in the past couple of years in “re-education camps”. The report was published just as the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act took place in the US, meaning that goods made with forced labor in Xingjiang will be banned from entering the market.
EVs are changing the mining industry
Mining has often been seen as a destructive force – ruining the natural environments around it. However, as the EV industry focuses more on sustainability, a shift has occurred. With consumers buying EVs with the environment in mind, the way materials are sourced is a part of that buying decision. In order to provoke change within the mining industry, big name automakers such as Volkswagen, BMW, GM, Ford, Tesla and Mercedes-Benz have all signed on to the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), which will ask miners to undergo third-party assessments by the initiative.
By offering a gold standard for mining, IRMA will promote transparency and as a result, increase market value for minerals that are then mined in a responsible and sustainable manner. As sustainability moves to the forefront of the world, industries are held accountable. Read more about how mining is changing for the better, in this article by the Financial Times.
