As Hybrid Cars and Electric Vehicles Gobble Rare Metals, Global Shortage Looms

As Hybrid Cars and Electric Vehicles Gobble Rare Metals, Global Shortage Looms

By Scott Doggett August 31, 2009

The Toyota Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells, Reuters news agency reported today.

Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tons annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed. One promising U.S. source is a rare earths mine slated to reopen in California by 2012.

Among the rare metals that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Fusion Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines.

Close cousins terbium and dysprosium are added in smaller amounts to the alloy to preserve neodymium's magnetic properties at high temperatures, Reuters reported. Yet another rare earth metal, lanthanum, is a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries.

Toyota has 70 percent of the U.S. market for vehicles powered by a combination of an internal-combustion engine and electric motor. The Prius is its No. 1 hybrid seller.

Reuters reported that Jack Lifton, an independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert, calls the Prius "the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world."

Each electric Prius motor requires 2.2 pounds of neodymium, and each battery uses 22 to 33 pounds of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota's plans to boost the car's fuel economy, he said.

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.