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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

Couple arrested after carjacked Jaguar breaks down

A couple that played musical chairs with allegedly stolen luxury cars was arrested in suburban Salt Lake City following a carjacking and police pursuit after one of the cars drove over a “stop strip” tire deflater and the other was a Jaguar suffering from mechanical problems. Police arrested Brock Hansen, 33, and Brittney Price, 23, on Sunday in Taylorsville, Utah, following the incidents, which were reported by local media and spotted by Jalopnik. They began, police say, when an officer out on patrol spotted what he suspected was a stolen BMW. The officer began to trail the car to run the license plate numbers when the BMW came to a stop to pick up a man, later identified as Hansen, who was walking on the street. The officer then continued to follow the car, was able to confirm that the BMW was, in fact, stolen, and called for backup. Police at one point used a stop stick — a triangular tube filled with tire-puncturing nails — to try and stop the duo, but Price instead made a U-turn after driving over it and continued on with a deflated tire. She eventually pulled into a gas station, where surveillance footage shows Hansen exiting the vehicle, walking over to what appears to be a Jaguar X-Type sedan whose driver was standing at the pump, climbing nonchalantly into the drivers seat and taking off, following the stolen BMW. Price eventually stopped and exited the BMW to try and get into the Jaguar but was apprehended by police after a brief foot chase and scuffle that left an officer injured, KSL-TV reported. Hansen then took off and led police on a chase — “at relatively low speeds,” according to ABC4.com — before he stopped the car and surrendered to police without a fight. Both were taken to jail. “What we learned from the owner of that Jaguar is that heÂ’s been having some issues with that Jaguar and he believes that the Jaguar just wasnÂ’t going to go anymore and was bogging down Â… so may have picked the wrong vehicle to try and run from the police in today,” Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake Sgt. Melody Gray told ABC4.

Autoblog fan favorite car ads from Super Bowl XLIX

Super Bowl XLIX is in the books, and the New England Patriots emerged victorious. Of course, if you're like us, the big game wasn't so much about the battle between the east coast and west, so much as a fight between the world's automotive advertisers. We collected and collated all of last night's new ads and put them together for you to vote on. And yes, we're limiting this year's contest to last night's new features. That's why you aren't seeing Dodge's epic Wisdom among our collection of commercials, and it's a similar story with Chevrolet's Truck Guy Focus Group series, which highlights the new Colorado. You can still vote for your favorites. We won't be closing the voting on our Super Bowl page, so while the winners and losers are correct as of this writing, it's entirely possible that there could be some changes in the rankings as time goes on. So, without any further ado, here are the winning ads based on your voting. Nissan: With Dad Fiat: Ready For Action Jeep: Beautiful Lands BMW: Newfangled Idea Mercedes-Benz: Fable NASCAR: America Start Your Engines As for those ads that failed to impact you, loyal readers, Toyota was the absolute, undisputed loser. The Japanese brand ran four ads in total – two for Toyota and two for Lexus – and all of them have negative tallies as of this writing. Lexus' Make Some Noise and Lets Play and Toyota's One Bold Choice and My Bold Dad both had very weak showings among the commercials that aired, although they weren't alone. Neither Mazda nor Kia scored particularly well, despite featuring celebrity magic act Penn and Teller and former James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, respectively. Chevrolet was the winner of the losers, as of our writing, recording the fewest downvotes for its audience-punking The Big Game ad. If you want to take a second look at the losing ads, you can head back to our Super Bowl page for the complete collection. But for now, head into Comments and let us know what you think of the results.