7 ms·

Electric vehicles will need 'battery passports' to enter EU from 2027

38 points by clouddrover 3y ago

mytailorisrich 3y ago
> “We take the information we know about that nickel and we create a digital replica of it,” said Carey. “Where was it mined? What was its geolocation? What was its weight? What was the elapsed time in terms of processing? “Then all of that information that we gather – at every step along the journey about that same piece of nickel – we can tie to that VIN or that QR code.” This opens so many possible control and regulation scenarios... > Carey said that this could influence buying decisions. And 'soft' discrimination/protectionism scenarios.
- tmikaeld 3y ago
  Good point, what's preventing a Chinese manufacturer to just generate the "perfect" QR/VIN in this case?
  - midasuni 3y ago
    The vin is a unique key in a database which contrails the data. Sure you can forge the vin, just like you can today, but that can be discovered and comes with a ton of risk
  - bolobo 3y ago
    Well, that's the same for all documents. You can just make them up, it's not that hard with 5 minutes of photoshop. But if there is a control and a manufacturer get caught lying about the provenance they are going to have a bad time (or the car manufacturer/battery resellers which didn't do their due diligence).
  - throwaway4good 3y ago
    It is obviously about preventing Chinese battery manufacturers selling in Europe. The problem for EU is that EU car companies make a lot of money in China so banning Chinese cars here makes us open for retaliation.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Apart from Dacha there is no affordable cars being made anymore. I think BMW etc really don't want competition for the 3rd or 4th owners market. Like, they want rich people to buy new cars and resell them. Not that poor people buy new 12kUSD cars from the factory since it would tank the economics of buying a new BMW.
      - oblio 3y ago
        > Dacha Dacia :-)
      - dotancohen 3y ago
        I had the opportunity to examine a Dacia recently, and I was blown away by the apparent build quality. Just closing the door felt as solid as any German luxury brand if not as heavy. The owner smiled and mentioned, yes, this vehicle is designed to still be functional after driving on Romanian roads.
      - soco 3y ago
        I'm a bit confused, you one side say there's no cheap car in Europe, then give a price in USD - are you actually in Europe and know what you are talking about? You can get a new Fiat, Citroen or Mitsubishi under 15k (some even hybrids) even here in the high-price-island Switzerland.
        rightbyte 3y ago
        Ye I might have underestimated the available cheaper models. A Mitsubishi Space Star seems to have about the same price as a Dacia Sandero.
    - mathverse 3y ago
      Nope. This is an equalizer. We already can only sell pre-approved stuff in China and the same for US. We are about to enter an age where these things are going to be revised.
      - 3y ago
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    Yes, but my point is rather the opposite: This allows to enforce various sanctions and controls against, for instance, Chinese manufacturers or specific mining countries, or to steer consumers away from certain producers while claiming that this is not protectionism but only "consumer choice". For instance, Wikipedia says that Russia is the 3rd largest producer of Nickel in the world (and France is 4th through New Caledonia...). This system, and indeed assuming that data are not falsified, allows them to indirectly hit them. Once the EU has visibility of so many data I'm sure they'll get creative ;)
- zer00eyz 3y ago
  > take the information we know about that nickel Yea the problem with this is tracking basic materials, commodities is HARD. Nickel is about 15k a ton... so a buck a KG to track (not unreasonable) you're adding quite a bit of cost. How about zinc at 2k a ton... that's a huge cost addition. Let's be clear tracking and sourcing of basic commodities would be a HUGE win for a lot of industries. Metal fraud is large, and rampant. See: https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/devils-metal-strikes-again-trafigura-nickel-fraud-case-2023-02-17/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/devils-metal-strikes-... The reality is that people who think these things up have little context for the complexity, scope and scale of what they are proposing. If they want the information to be accurate and useful then it's going to be expensive. If they want the system to of reasonable cost then it isnt going to do the job...
p0w3n3d 3y ago
EU legislations look like a bad programmer who didn't think thoroughly the code.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- midasuni 3y ago
  Remind me to make some stuff in Iran and ship it through a third party to the US and see what happens.
- grapescheesee 3y ago
  More like a script kiddie trying to get back at an ex.
- throwaw33333434 3y ago
  Why? It's hard to argue without the details, but I think the direction is good. I want to know more about the products I use. A can of coke should have a QR code with all the information about the product. Which mines provided the Aluminium? Good programmers log.
- oblio 3y ago
  Have you read these legislations? They're available online and fairly legible.
weinzierl 3y ago
"To preserve intellectual property, manufacturers will be able to access the full scope of information in a battery passport but other parties will be limited in what they can see."
- dns_snek 3y ago
  Oh it's the "Intellectual property" talking point again, who could've guessed. The future of tech and any tech-adjacent industry looks bleak.
pxtail 3y ago
> European authorities haven’t yet specified precisely what information a battery passport must contain, but a three-year, £7 million project called the Battery Pass Consortium is defining exactly that. > Led by ‘system changer’ Systemiq and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the project’s 11 partners include car industry heavyweights such as Audi and BMW and Circulor as the tech lead. Ahh, obviously.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Alternate titles: "Uncompetitive German EV manufacturers lobby for tighter controls and taxes on EV competition entering the EU." Is that close?
  - mantas 3y ago
    More like „Germany tries to prevent de-industrialisation and economy collapse“.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      ...through regulation instead of competition.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        But competition is hard, just ask Boeing. Paying politicians you golf with to make laws favoring you is easier.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        I agree - assuming the state can oversee this despite lack of expertise and being bribeable is never going to go well!
      - mantas 3y ago
        Well, China didn’t industrialize through fair competition either. There’s no mythical level playing field. Regulations is not a problem. The problem is here in europe we ain’t focusing on engineering and manufacturing culturally. Regulations can create a void but do we have what to fill it with?
furyg3 3y ago
The EU is doing a lot of work in this space in other fields, basically looking at products that are high risk for environmental or social issues and requiring due diligence and documentation for those products. I develop traceability solutions for agri-food, and it's pretty impressive to see how everyone is suddenly actually really researching their supply chains in the run up to new EU deforestation laws requiring this due diligence. Of course it's possible to debate the effects and impact of the legislation (in some cases companies may choose to bail completely on certain origins, which does little to advance environmental or social issues there), but from what I've seen so far it is acting as a catalyzing force at large organizations to start doing real due diligence efforts.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >everyone is suddenly actually really researching their supply chains in the run up to new EU deforestation laws requiring this due diligence How effective will that be on preventing illegal deforestation? A lot of illegal deforestation in the EU(Romania) is going on under the noses of the authorities which are complicit and help the local logging mafia get clean papers for their wood, and turn a blind eye to checks and help fudge reports as it's multi hundred million Euro industry thanks to huge demand from wood manufacturers in Germany and Austria who don't care how and where that timber comes form as long as it's dirt cheap and has clean looking papers. The logging mafia has no remorse to hurt or kill people getting in between them and their 7-9 figure revenues, let alone give a toss about cooking the books or fudging some traceability reports. Your agri-food traceability software seem more as solutions the big wood consuming mega corporations like IKEA can use to say "look, the traceability software says we're complaint, m'kay", to get out of a pickle when being caught red handed with tainted raw materials. The exact same thing is happening with the "ethically sourced" cocoa and coffee beans, which is often farmed by the same slave labor. Unless there's heavy policing by non-corruptible third parties, across the entire supply chains, and enough guilty people go to jail to send a strong message, traceability solutions and ethically sourced stickers don't mean jack shit as the paperwork can easily be fudged by system savvy people looking to make money.
  - furyg3 3y ago
vdaea 3y ago
[flagged]
akmarinov 3y ago
"We have a story with the passport keyword in it? Better stick in an image of the blue post-Brexit passport, then!"

38 points by clouddrover 3y ago

> “We take the information we know about that nickel and we create a digital replica of it,” said Carey. “Where was it mined? What was its geolocation? What was its weight? What was the elapsed time in terms of processing? “Then all of that information that we gather – at every step along the journey about that same piece of nickel – we can tie to that VIN or that QR code.” This opens so many possible control and regulation scenarios... > Carey said that this could influence buying decisions. And 'soft' discrimination/protectionism scenarios.

tmikaeld 3y ago
Good point, what's preventing a Chinese manufacturer to just generate the "perfect" QR/VIN in this case?
- midasuni 3y ago
  The vin is a unique key in a database which contrails the data. Sure you can forge the vin, just like you can today, but that can be discovered and comes with a ton of risk
- bolobo 3y ago
  Well, that's the same for all documents. You can just make them up, it's not that hard with 5 minutes of photoshop. But if there is a control and a manufacturer get caught lying about the provenance they are going to have a bad time (or the car manufacturer/battery resellers which didn't do their due diligence).
- throwaway4good 3y ago
  It is obviously about preventing Chinese battery manufacturers selling in Europe. The problem for EU is that EU car companies make a lot of money in China so banning Chinese cars here makes us open for retaliation.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Apart from Dacha there is no affordable cars being made anymore. I think BMW etc really don't want competition for the 3rd or 4th owners market. Like, they want rich people to buy new cars and resell them. Not that poor people buy new 12kUSD cars from the factory since it would tank the economics of buying a new BMW.
    - oblio 3y ago
      > Dacha Dacia :-)
    - dotancohen 3y ago
      I had the opportunity to examine a Dacia recently, and I was blown away by the apparent build quality. Just closing the door felt as solid as any German luxury brand if not as heavy. The owner smiled and mentioned, yes, this vehicle is designed to still be functional after driving on Romanian roads.
    - soco 3y ago
      I'm a bit confused, you one side say there's no cheap car in Europe, then give a price in USD - are you actually in Europe and know what you are talking about? You can get a new Fiat, Citroen or Mitsubishi under 15k (some even hybrids) even here in the high-price-island Switzerland.
      - rightbyte 3y ago
        Ye I might have underestimated the available cheaper models. A Mitsubishi Space Star seems to have about the same price as a Dacia Sandero.
  - mathverse 3y ago
    Nope. This is an equalizer. We already can only sell pre-approved stuff in China and the same for US. We are about to enter an age where these things are going to be revised.
    - 3y ago
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Yes, but my point is rather the opposite: This allows to enforce various sanctions and controls against, for instance, Chinese manufacturers or specific mining countries, or to steer consumers away from certain producers while claiming that this is not protectionism but only "consumer choice". For instance, Wikipedia says that Russia is the 3rd largest producer of Nickel in the world (and France is 4th through New Caledonia...). This system, and indeed assuming that data are not falsified, allows them to indirectly hit them. Once the EU has visibility of so many data I'm sure they'll get creative ;)
zer00eyz 3y ago
> take the information we know about that nickel Yea the problem with this is tracking basic materials, commodities is HARD. Nickel is about 15k a ton... so a buck a KG to track (not unreasonable) you're adding quite a bit of cost. How about zinc at 2k a ton... that's a huge cost addition. Let's be clear tracking and sourcing of basic commodities would be a HUGE win for a lot of industries. Metal fraud is large, and rampant. See: https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/devils-metal-strikes-again-trafigura-nickel-fraud-case-2023-02-17/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/devils-metal-strikes-... The reality is that people who think these things up have little context for the complexity, scope and scale of what they are proposing. If they want the information to be accurate and useful then it's going to be expensive. If they want the system to of reasonable cost then it isnt going to do the job...

p0w3n3d 3y ago

EU legislations look like a bad programmer who didn't think thoroughly the code.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
midasuni 3y ago
Remind me to make some stuff in Iran and ship it through a third party to the US and see what happens.
grapescheesee 3y ago
More like a script kiddie trying to get back at an ex.
throwaw33333434 3y ago
Why? It's hard to argue without the details, but I think the direction is good. I want to know more about the products I use. A can of coke should have a QR code with all the information about the product. Which mines provided the Aluminium? Good programmers log.
oblio 3y ago
Have you read these legislations? They're available online and fairly legible.

weinzierl 3y ago

"To preserve intellectual property, manufacturers will be able to access the full scope of information in a battery passport but other parties will be limited in what they can see."

dns_snek 3y ago
Oh it's the "Intellectual property" talking point again, who could've guessed. The future of tech and any tech-adjacent industry looks bleak.

pxtail 3y ago

> European authorities haven’t yet specified precisely what information a battery passport must contain, but a three-year, £7 million project called the Battery Pass Consortium is defining exactly that. > Led by ‘system changer’ Systemiq and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the project’s 11 partners include car industry heavyweights such as Audi and BMW and Circulor as the tech lead. Ahh, obviously.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Alternate titles: "Uncompetitive German EV manufacturers lobby for tighter controls and taxes on EV competition entering the EU." Is that close?
- mantas 3y ago
  More like „Germany tries to prevent de-industrialisation and economy collapse“.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    ...through regulation instead of competition.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      But competition is hard, just ask Boeing. Paying politicians you golf with to make laws favoring you is easier.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        I agree - assuming the state can oversee this despite lack of expertise and being bribeable is never going to go well!
    - mantas 3y ago
      Well, China didn’t industrialize through fair competition either. There’s no mythical level playing field. Regulations is not a problem. The problem is here in europe we ain’t focusing on engineering and manufacturing culturally. Regulations can create a void but do we have what to fill it with?

furyg3 3y ago

The EU is doing a lot of work in this space in other fields, basically looking at products that are high risk for environmental or social issues and requiring due diligence and documentation for those products. I develop traceability solutions for agri-food, and it's pretty impressive to see how everyone is suddenly actually really researching their supply chains in the run up to new EU deforestation laws requiring this due diligence. Of course it's possible to debate the effects and impact of the legislation (in some cases companies may choose to bail completely on certain origins, which does little to advance environmental or social issues there), but from what I've seen so far it is acting as a catalyzing force at large organizations to start doing real due diligence efforts.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>everyone is suddenly actually really researching their supply chains in the run up to new EU deforestation laws requiring this due diligence How effective will that be on preventing illegal deforestation? A lot of illegal deforestation in the EU(Romania) is going on under the noses of the authorities which are complicit and help the local logging mafia get clean papers for their wood, and turn a blind eye to checks and help fudge reports as it's multi hundred million Euro industry thanks to huge demand from wood manufacturers in Germany and Austria who don't care how and where that timber comes form as long as it's dirt cheap and has clean looking papers. The logging mafia has no remorse to hurt or kill people getting in between them and their 7-9 figure revenues, let alone give a toss about cooking the books or fudging some traceability reports. Your agri-food traceability software seem more as solutions the big wood consuming mega corporations like IKEA can use to say "look, the traceability software says we're complaint, m'kay", to get out of a pickle when being caught red handed with tainted raw materials. The exact same thing is happening with the "ethically sourced" cocoa and coffee beans, which is often farmed by the same slave labor. Unless there's heavy policing by non-corruptible third parties, across the entire supply chains, and enough guilty people go to jail to send a strong message, traceability solutions and ethically sourced stickers don't mean jack shit as the paperwork can easily be fudged by system savvy people looking to make money.
- furyg3 3y ago

vdaea 3y ago

[flagged]

akmarinov 3y ago

"We have a story with the passport keyword in it? Better stick in an image of the blue post-Brexit passport, then!"