2024 Ram 3500 Laramie Longhorn on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Stellantis invests more than $100 million in California lithium project

Stellantis said it would invest more than $100 million in California's Controlled Thermal Resources, its latest bet on the direct lithium extraction (DLE) sector amid the global hunt for new sources of the electric vehicle battery metal. The investment by the Chrysler and Jeep parent announced on Thursday comes as the green energy transition and U.S. Inflation Reduction Act have fueled concerns that supplies of lithium and other materials may fall short of strong demand forecasts. DLE technologies vary, but each aims to mechanically filter lithium from salty brine deposits and thus avoid the need for open pit mines or large evaporation ponds, the two most common but environmentally challenging ways to extract the battery metal. Stellantis, which has said half of its fleet will be electric by 2030, also agreed to nearly triple the amount of lithium it will buy from Controlled Thermal, boosting a previous order to 65,000 metric tons annually for at least 10 years, starting in 2027. "This is a significant investment and goes a long way toward developing this key project," Controlled Thermal CEO Rod Colwell said in an interview. The company plans to spend more than $1 billion to separate lithium from superhot geothermal brines extracted from beneath California's Salton Sea after flashing steam off those brines to spin turbines that will produce electricity starting next year. That renewable power is expected to cut the amount of carbon emitted during lithium production. Rival Berkshire Hathaway has struggled to produce lithium from the same area given large concentrations of silica in the brine that can form glass when cooled, clogging pipes. Colwell said a $65 million facility recently installed by Controlled Thermal can remove that silica and other unwanted metals. DLE equipment licensed from Koch Industries would then remove the lithium. "We're very happy with the equipment," he said. "We're going to deliver. There's just no doubt about it." Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares called the Controlled Thermal partnership "an important step in our care for our customers and our planet as we work to provide clean, safe and affordable mobility." Both companies declined to provide the specific investment amount. Controlled Thermal aims to obtain final permits by October and start construction of a commercial lithium plant soon thereafter, Colwell said. Goldman Sachs is leading the search for additional debt and equity financing, he added.

2019 Ram 1500 spy shots further hint at a trick tailgate for the Chicago Auto Show

It seems all but guaranteed that the 2019 Ram 1500 is going to get some kind of fancy tailgate for the 1500. The latest evidence comes from our spy shooters who just caught an extremely suspicious truck running around with the whole bed and tailgate area covered. Everything other than the bed is ours to see, so Ram is obviously trying to hide something out back. We reported this morning about some Twitter shenanigans between Ram and GMC during the Super Bowl last night. The back and forth between the two companies resulted in Ram hinting that we'll see something new at the Chicago Auto Show this Thursday. Here's the Tweet thread below: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. In dissecting these spy shots, there isn't a whole lot to tear apart. We've got a normal Ram 1500 with a secret or two in the rear. As we zoom into the small patch of white we see through the camouflage, the normal outline of a recessed handle is somewhat visible. It's hard to determine exactly what is under there, because the recessed area is black and doesn't define itself next to the black camouflage. We can say there might be a grab handle in the normal spot you'd find one. There seem to be countless forms for this tailgate to take shape in. Spy photos of a Ram over a year ago with a strange 60/40 split caught our eyes that would probably have the option of opening in a barn-door style. Fiat-Chrysler has experience with split tailgates with its foreign-market Fiat Toro pickup, plus the company filed a patent on split tailgates a few years ago. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. A split design is most likely, but if we let the speculative parts of our brains run amok, we could even see a swing-out style tailgate similar to the Honda Ridgeline as possible. A major benefit to Ridgeline's swinging tailgate is easy access to the bed itself, as well as the in-bed trunk. None of the competition has such a useful area under the bed. But it would be hard to see Ram introducing its own trunk, especially when it offers the RamBox bedside storage system. Still, speculation can run wild on this one. The nice part about this mystery is that we won't have to wait long for the solution, since Ram has indicated it'll be solved at the Chicago Auto Show. We'll be on the ground there to try out whatever new-fangled tailgate Ram has to offer. Related video:

Ram ProMaster City getting facelift courtesy of Fiat Doblo?

Our intrepid spy photographers have caught prototypes for a new Fiat Doblo. Now we know what you might be thinking (particularly if you didn't take note of the headline): why would we care about an automaker conducting a facelift on a European cargo van? Normally we wouldn't, only the Fiat Doblo has another name, under which it will be shortly be sold here in America: Ram ProMaster City.
Announced just months ago, the ProMaster City is the smaller counterpart to the Ram ProMaster, which itself is also a rebadged cargo van from Fiat Professional. Think of it as a Chrysler version of the Ford Transit and Transit Connect lineup - European vans being brought Stateside by automakers that operate on both sides of the Atlantic.
But despite the official announcement of the vehicle's pending arrival, we still haven't seen the PMC yet. The disguised Doblo prototypes pictured here appear to be wearing a completely new front end and some cosmetic revisions to their tail ends, too. We can't see anything in the interior, but the fact that it was completely covered up suggests that Fiat is working on overhauling that, as well.