Is Prius production about to screech to a halt?

enjoy it while you can!

 

Bump, cutting of some shipments now to US http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/business/global/20rare.html

 

New players Emerging in rare earth mining.


I had read a year ago from Jim Jubak that Lanthanum, Neodymium, Dysprosium, and Terbium mining companies were worth looking into and that most were coming from china so it's predictable that they'll take care of their own economic interest as we did with oil reserves.

The logical thing to do would be to invest in the new players that wont use these tactics just yet as they'll prob invest in expanding first.

I'm a big fan of wind turbines or kinetic energy to electric, but I'm not brave enough to invest in the market. There's one company thats caught my eye thats USA domestic and I still wont dare to jump into it.

 

China has a goal of converting to electric cars in the next few years, and it looks like they are set to make their own batteries. They will probably be making the cheapest hybrids for export as well. They know they in business with the rest of the world, so I doubt there is cause for much concern. The Arab oil embargo days are over.

 

Is the Prius the ONLY vehicle that uses these "rare" materials???

 

JCI which is the largest us battery maker, has contracts for providing some of the li batteries to chinese car makers. They have factories in china. I would expect that korean battery maker lg will be providing some of those batteries as well.