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Child cobalt miners: Automakers pledge ethical minerals sourcing for EVs

BERLIN - Leading carmakers including Volkswagen and Toyota pledged on Wednesday to uphold ethical and socially responsible standards in their purchases of minerals for an expected boom in electric vehicle production. Demand for minerals such as cobalt, graphite and lithium is forecast to soar in the coming years as governments crack down on vehicle pollution and carmakers step up their investments in electric models. To cover its plans for more than 80 new models by 2025, Volkswagen alone is looking for partners in China, Europe and North America to provide battery cells and related technology worth more than 50 billion euros ($59 billion). Talks with major cobalt producers, including Glencore, at VW's Wolfsburg headquarters last week ended without a deal. More than half of the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country racked by political instability and legal opacity, and where child labor is used in mines. On Wednesday, a group of 10 leading passenger-car and truck manufacturers announced an initiative to jointly identify and address ethical, environmental, human and labor rights issues in raw materials sourcing. The partnership dubbed "Drive Sustainability" consists of VW, Toyota Motor Europe, Ford, Daimler, BMW, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo Cars and truckmakers Scania and Volvo. The alliance "will assess the risks posed by the top raw materials (such as mica, cobalt, rubber and leather) in the automotive sector," said Stefan Crets of the CSR Europe business network. "This will allow Drive Sustainability to identify the most impactful activities to pursue" to address issues within the supply chain.Reporting by Andreas Cremer.Related Video: Image Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images Green BMW Ford Honda Jaguar Land Rover Mercedes-Benz Automakers Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Green Automakers Green Culture Electric Scania ethics mining

Volvo Cars, Northvolt to build battery plant with 3,000 jobs

Northvolt's new facility in Skelleftea, Sweden.   STOCKHOLM — Automaker Volvo Cars and battery manufacturer Northvolt will build their joint battery plant in Gothenburg, western Sweden, the two companies said on Friday. The new 50-gigawatt-hour (GWh) plant will create up to 3,000 jobs and make battery cells specifically developed for use in pure electric Volvo and Polestar cars, the Sweden-based companies said. Operations will begin in 2025. The two companies said last year they would form a joint venture to develop batteries, including setting up a gigafactory for production and a research and development centre, a total investment of about 30 billion crowns ($3.3 billion). Northvolt and Volvo said former Tesla executive Adrian Clarke had been appointed to lead the production company. "He comes with a long experience from Tesla as well as around how to build these type of factories," Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson, who also previously worked for Tesla, told Reuters. Volvo Cars head of engineering and operations, Javier Varela, said access to fossil-free energy, skills and infrastructure had been factors for choosing Gothenburg, Volvo's hometown. Competition for talent is fierce, with most battery engineers based in Asia. Tesla and Asian companies such as LG and Samsung SDI are also setting up factories in Europe. Northvolt's gigafactory in the Swedish town of Skelleftea assembled its first battery cell at the end of December, making it the first European company to design and manufacture a battery in Europe. Carlsson said it was running as planned, although he said global supply-chain problems, semiconductor shortages and the COVID-19 had made it more of a challenge. "It has not been the easiest of times," he said. Volvo Cars, majority owned by China's Geely Holding, aims to sell 50% pure electric cars by the middle of this decade and fully electric cars only by 2030. Northvolt, whose biggest shareholder is Volkswagen, has so far receive more than $30 billion worth of contracts from customers such as BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volkswagen, Volvo Cars and Polestar.  

Tony Nicolosi named CEO of Volvo Cars North America

Volvo announced today that it has named Tony Nicolosi, president and CEO of Volvo Car Financial Services VCFS), as the new CEO of Volvo Cars of North America (VCNA). Nicolosi replaces John Maloney, who chose to leave due to family obligations after Volvo offered him a position in Europe.
Volvo says Nicolosi will remain president and CEO of VCFS while he assumes VCNA's top position. The Swedish automaker also says a "permanent successor [to Maloney] as President and CEO will be the subject of a later announcement."
The move comes as part of a management shakeup that's part of a "larger transformation taking place at Volvo," the automaker says.