Electric vehicles get $395m boost

AN AUSTRALIAN company has secured a $349m injection from the White House to quadruple the size of its US operation that will produce a critical component of electric vehicle batteries.

Syrah Resources, based in Melbourne, received the massive boost as part of a $4.4bn package announced by US President Joe Biden to help manufacture millions of batteries for electric cars.

It follows another $162m loan from the US Department of Energy in July for Syrah’s Louisiana factory, which will make graphite-based active anode material for lithiumion batteries.

The White House said the US was currently 100 per cent reliant on China for the important material, with Syrah’s Vidalia facility to be the first of its kind in the United States.

It is due to be producing 11,250 metric tons of active anode material from late next year.

The new project, for which Syrah will split the costs 50-50 with the US government, will expand that capacity to at least 45,000 metric tons per year.

By 2026, the US is expected to need more than 500,000 metric tons of active anode material every year to help meet President Biden’s ambitious target for electric vehicles to make up half of all new vehicles sold in 2030.

About 120 jobs are expected to come from Syrah’s expansion project, on top of 101 jobs from the initial stage of the facility.

Overall, Mr Biden’s $4.4bn investment is expected to develop enough lithium for two million electric vehicle batteries a year, graphite for 1.2 million batteries and nickel for 400,000 batteries.

US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said it would “supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is Americanmade”.