With the push for mass-market electric cars, diverse companies such as Chevrolet, Hyundai, BMW and Tesla are said to be releasing affordable, consumer friendly vehicles within the next 12 to 18 months.
The race is on for the car industry to go green but not everything is quite the rosy picture EPV (electric powered vehicles) advocates are trying to portray. Lithium, vital to the production of the rechargeable batteries used in EPV's is going to be needed in vast quantities. This relatively rare element is currently being sourced in brine deposits under the world's driest desert in northern Chile. A 3000-square kilometres in area, known as the Salar de Atacame, is a region also celebrated for its wild Flamingos. Locals are concerned that the mining operations undertaken to get to the lithium is also destroying the habitat where the Flamingos feed and breed.
The full write up is featured in The Age.
