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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 EX30 U.S. arrival delayed until at least next year

Despite an aggressive campaign ongoing for more than a year to market Volvo’s compact all-electric SUV in the United States, the Swedish-based company said today that it will delay introduction of the EX30 until next year. Russell Datz, a Volvo spokesman, said in an email that the on-sale date of the EX30 is “due to changes in the global automotive landscape.” Datz also attributed the delay to a “ramp up of production at our plant in Ghent, Belgium, with a 2025 target delivery date to be announced.Â’Â’ Volvo though its own channels began taking pre-orders for the 2025 EX30 after it was introduced formally just year ago; the anticipated U.S. price was announced at that time as starting at $36,145, including an $1,195 destination charge Datz added that Volvo “will offer customers with existing preorders several options to drive a new Volvo until their EX30 arrives.Â’Â’ No specifics about that, so stay tuned. “Importantly, we remain committed to bringing EX30 to the US and are working hard to get it into customer hands,” he said. It “remains a cornerstone of Volvo CarsÂ’ ongoing strategic transformation and reflects our ambition to build cars where we sell them as much as possible.” The EX30 is now sold in European markets. During a conference call with dealers today, Volvo executives suggested that the move to shift assembly to Belgium and away from China was an effect of the “geopolitical” situation. Reading between the lines, one might assume that recent moves by the Biden administration to impose high tariffs on cars imported here from China mightÂ’ve motivated the shift. Deliveries of the EX30 to the States was first expected earlier this year. Volvo said it would be offered with two powertrain options, both of which rely on a 69-kilowatt-hour cobalt-lithium-manganese-nickel composite battery, 64 kWh of which is usable. The base model, called Single Motor Extended Range, will have a rear-wheel-drive layout and produce 268 horsepower and 253 pound-feet of torque. Volvo expects this version to have a range of 275 miles on the U.S. EPA test cycle.

Big rig gets blown over on Wyoming freeway, flattens police cruiser

A big rig navigating a stretch of windy Wyoming highway last week was blown over by high winds and landed on a Wyoming Highway Patrol cruiser. According to CBS News, three Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers responded to an accident along Interstate 80 near Elk Mountain on February 7. While the troopers were out of their cars assisting the crash victims, a white Volvo semi-truck lumbered up I-80 toward them. Wind gusts in that part of Wyoming were clocked in at up to 90 miles per hour on Tuesday, and one of them caught the semi as it neared the parked cruisers. Video from one of the cruiser's onboard cameras showed the big rig drift to the right as a big gust hit the trailer. Slowly, the whole rig tipped over and flattened one of the parked cruisers. The truck then slid a few feet on its side and came to a stop just aft of the cruiser. None of the troopers were injured in the incident, and two people in the truck came out of it unhurt as well. Patrol Lieutenant David Wagener told KGWN that that stretch of I-80 was closed on Tuesday to lightweight, high-profile vehicles. The truck driver was cited for the incident. High winds are no joke, and vehicles getting blown around or even clean off the road is a pretty common phenomenon. Way back in 2011, a truck got blown over in Utah. Then there was a train that got blown off a bridge in Louisiana in 2015. Related Video: News Source: CBS News, KGWN Auto News Dodge Volvo Driving Safety Truck Commercial Vehicles Police/Emergency Sedan semi truck rollover wyoming