[bwilson4web]

http://www.glgroup.com/News/Peugeot-...rid-42278.html

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The critical metal in a nickel metal hydride, NiMH, battery is the 2d most abundant of the rare earth metals, lanthanum. A state-of-the-art NiMH battery today, for a vehicle with the size and performance of the Toyota Prius, for example, uses between 12 and 20 kg of (primarily) lanthanum containing some neodymium and a little praseodymium in its overall construction. Additionally the battery uses up to five times as much nickel metal as it does lanthanum and a small amount of cobalt. Thus the manufacturing of a NiMH battery pack requires a lot of rare metals as well as a lot of engineering.
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This is the first time I've seen an analysis of the other elements in a NiMH battery. What surprised me is the amount of lanthanum, 12-20 kg.

Here is another article written in 7/24/2008 by the same author, Jack Lifton:

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It is important that you know that every hybrid vehicle today mass produced for sale by Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford, and Chrysler utilizes a nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) battery. Even more importantly you need to know that in the 2007 model year GM made or sold 9,000 ‘hybrid’ vehicles and that all 9,000 were recalled to replace a defective NiMH battery. In the same year Toyota sold more than 250,000 Priuses and there is no report of any 2007 model year battery failure. Note well that Toyota makes its own NiMH batteries in-house and that GM buys its battery components from a Japanese manufacturer-not Toyota-and has them assembled by the joint venture between Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices, Inc called COBASYS, which has been in existence for most of the twenty-first century, has burned through more than $200 million of Chevron’s money and has never made a profit! . . .

Now I'm not a great fan of investor publications. Too often they see 'potential' and the subsequent reality may be quite different. Still, it is interesting to read Jack Lifton's analysis given how hybrid skeptics focused on nickel without a clue of the other elements needed. For example, when I opened up a Prius battery, I found:

By volume, the metal hydride storage material is the largest portion, which makes sense because it stores the hydrogen. The nickel metal electrodes are more like a heavy duty foil.

Bob Wilson