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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

Apollo Edition Mustang is a moonshot for charity

By putting a man on the moon, the Apollo Program stands as one of the greatest engineering achievements in human history. Ford is paying tribute to that massive triumph with the company's latest one-off Mustang for the charity auction at EAA AirVenure in Oshkosh, WI, on July 23. This Apollo Edition 'Stang is probably never leaving Earth's atmosphere, but it's going to shoot like a rocket down the road. The Apollo Edition starts as a 2015 Mustang GT, but project manager Melvin Betancourt from Ford Design comprehensively overhauls the pony car. The exterior is finished in a handsome mix of black and white, and the coupe also shows off some serious patriotism with the Stars and Stripes adorning the outside. In an especially clever touch, orange LEDs underneath are meant to make the bottom look like its heating up under re-entry. Inside, the leather upholstery gets upgraded with embroidery inspired by the Apollo Program. Whether trying to launch into space or go quicker through the quarter mile, weight is the enemy, and power is crucial. The Apollo Edition boasts carbon fiber parts for the rear diffuser, side sills, and some trim. The 5.0-liter V8 also gets a Ford Performance supercharger to take output to 627 horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque. A set of six-piston Brembo calipers should help slow this rocket down, and 21-inch custom wheels add some style. "With this year's stunning Apollo Edition Mustang, we salute that spirit of American ingenuity with the quintessential American automobile – Ford Mustang." Edsel B. Ford II said in the special model's announcement. The coupe is the Blue Oval's eighth charity car to support the Experimental Aircraft Association. The seven before it have raised nearly $3 million for the group's work to get young people interested in flying. Related Video: FORD ANNOUNCES APOLLO EDITION MUSTANG TO CELEBRATE INNOVATION AND INSPIRATION OF APOLLO MISSIONS U.S. Apollo spaceflight program inspires one-of-a-kind 2015 Ford Mustang to be donated and sold at charity auction July 23 at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin Donation and sale will benefit EAA youth aviation education programs, including Young Eagles Unique Ford vehicles have raised nearly $3 million for EAA youth aviation programs, including Young Eagles As far as special edition Mustangs go, this one is out of this world.

Detroit and Silicon Valley: When cultures collide

Culture is a subject that rarely, if never, gets discussed when traditional auto companies buy — or hugely invest — in Silicon Valley-based companies. The conversation surrounding the investments is usually about how the tech looks appealing and how it's an appropriate step to move the automakers toward autonomy. Culture — the way things are done, the expectations, and the approaches — is something that is overlooked only at one's peril. The potential cultural gap is almost always evident in the obligatory photos of the participants in these deals, with is essentially a photo op of auto execs with their Silicon Valley counterparts. The former — rocking jeans and no ties — look like parochial school kids playing hooky. Don't worry: The regimental outfits will be back in place once they get back in the Eastern time zone. Consider what happened back in 1998 when Daimler bought Chrysler. First of all, there was a denial in Detroit that it happened. It was positioned as a "merger of equals." Which it wasn't. In any corporate situation, when one has more than 50 percent of the business, it owns the whole thing. And the German company was in the proverbial driver's seat. People who were around Auburn Hills back then kept their heads down and their German Made Simple books at hand. Things did not go well. Daimler had had enough by 2007, when it offloaded Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management — which brought ex-Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli into the picture, which is a story onto itself. But when you think about the Daimler-Chrysler situation, realize that these were two car companies (at least the Mercedes part of the Daimler organization), so they had that in common, and the language of engineers is something of an Esperanto based on math, so there was that, too. Yet it simply didn't work. It doesn't take too many viewings of HBO's Silicon Valley to know that the business people in that part of the world are far more aggressive than people who ordinarily head and control car companies in Detroit. About 20 years ago, a book came out about the founder of Oracle titled The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison* - and the asterisk on the book jacket leads to: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison. It would be hard to imagine a book about a Detroit executive, even a book that had the decided bias that the tome about Ellison evinces, that would be quite so searing. Sure, there are egos. But they are still perceived to be, overall, "nice" people.