NISSAN’S Carlos Ghosn’s
Brazen Escape From Japan
REPRINTED CREDITED AT END OF THIS POST….
WHAT A DARING JAMES BOND TYPE CAPER BY MR GHOSN-NOW HIDING IN BEIRUT!!!!
The scheme involved stacks of cash, a stealthy dash to the airport, and plenty of
cloak-and-dagger tactics. In the end, though, the auto executive had to hunker
down in a claustrophobic box, hoping no one would look inside.
Ever the thorough operative, Michael Taylor began laying the groundwork of his cover story as soon as the private jet he had chartered landed in Japan. He and George Zayek were violinists who would be performing nearby, he told a worker at the Osaka private-jet terminal shortly after the Bombardier Global Express arrived from Dubai at 10:10 a.m. local time.
As personnel at Kansai International Airport unloaded suitcases, a guitar case and two large black boxes, Tomoyuki Matsui, the manager of the private-jet terminal’s ground-service team, ushered the men to the terminal bus, which took them to the posh Premium Gate Tamayura. Kayoko Tokunaga, a 30-year-old employee fluent in English, was waiting to greet them and comfortably struck up conversation with Messrs. Taylor and Zayek as they waited for their passports to be stamped. “Your stay is so short,” she remarked, according to transcripts of police interviews.
They had an important meeting outside Japan the following day, Mr. Taylor explained. But he planned to come back for the Olympics in Tokyo the following summer. From the little that Mr. Zayek contributed, he struck Ms. Tokunaga as blunt and disagreeable.
As their luggage was wheeled into the terminal, Ms. Tokunaga and her boss, Mr. Matsui, started discussing the odd couple they were dealing with. As Mr. Matsui spoke, Ms. Tokunaga eyed the massive cases that she figured must contain amplifiers, even though they looked too large for the purpose.
She also saw a guitar case. Why were violinists carrying a guitar? Mr. Matsui and Ms. Tokunaga had been told the passengers were attending a concert by celebrated violinist Taro Hakase as guests, rather than as performers. 

In reality, they were neither. Mr. Taylor had been hired to help Carlos Ghosn, the former chief of Nissan Motor Co. NSANY 0.70% and Renault SA, RN0-1.03% flee Japan, where he was facing serious criminal charges, having been accused of orchestrating a complex flow of money between Nissan, the Middle East, and his own pocket.
Mr. Ghosn, who has denied wrongdoing, had been the world’s most prominent car executive of the 21st century. To the astonishment of naysayers worldwide, he had forged two middling car makers into a global powerhouse, the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Near the end of his career, he had been ready to push through his last great act as an executive—a merger between the French and Japanese car makers.
By Mr. Ghosn’s account, a plotting group of Nissan executives had prevented that by conspiring to orchestrate his downfall. His careful plans had been thwarted by a dramatic, unexpected arrest in November 2018. Nissan has said: “The sole cause of this chain of events is the misconduct led by Ghosn.”
In mid-2019, Mr. Taylor received a call from one of Mr. Ghosn’s acquaintances asking whether he could mastermind an escape. Mr. Taylor roped in his old friend Mr. Zayek and also enlisted his son, Peter Taylor, to play a limited, supporting role in the scheme. The plan was to flee to Lebanon, where Mr. Ghosn had grown up and—most important—a country that did not extradite its citizens.
The men who had come to sneak Mr. Ghosn out of the country made about the least likely pair of violinists imaginable.
Now Mr. Ghosn, 65 years old, was out on bail while awaiting trial, which he feared would be unfair, he has said repeatedly. Furthermore, he believed the Japanese court process moved so slowly that he might die before a verdict was delivered. He was willing to risk everything for a chance at freedom.
This account is based on police interviews, security footage, bank statements and other documents, as well as interviews with people familiar with how the escape was conducted, including Mr. Ghosn himself.
On Dec. 29, 2019, Messrs. Taylor and Zayek landed in Japan to pull off the plan.
* * *
The men who had come to sneak Mr. Ghosn out of the country made about the least likely pair of violinists imaginable. Mr. Taylor looked like the former Green Beret that he was. Fitter than men half his age, with closely clipped salt-and-pepper hair and a square jaw, he was straight out of central casting.
Mr. Zayek painted an even more striking image. He openly bore the scars of his former life as a Lebanese militiaman. He was partially deaf in his left ear and partially blind in one eye and walked with a pronounced limp, the result of a leg injury decades ago.
From the airport, Messrs. Taylor and Zayek took two vans to the Star Gate Hotel, where they checked in at 11:12 a.m. Mr. Taylor was given room 4009, where hotel staff dropped off their suitcases and the guitar. Mr. Zayek checked into a room six floors above, to which hotel staff brought the two large black boxes.

 
Mr. Zayek returned to the lobby and waited for Mr. Taylor. While he sat there, an anxious employee from the terminal showed up with a suitcase they had forgotten on the plane—a slip-up that hadn’t been part of the plan. The worker bowed and apologized for the mistake. The employee noticed that Mr. Zayek turned his head as the employee was speaking. Mr. Zayek the “concert violinist” explained that he had difficulty hearing out of his right ear, then told him not to worry about the delayed suitcase.
Messrs. Taylor and Zayek hadn’t determined whether they would get Mr. Ghosn out that day or if the whole exercise would turn into a dress rehearsal. As seasoned operatives, they tried to make sure that there would be no surprises or unpredictable scenarios on such a high-stakes, high-risk mission. Just in case, Mr. Zayek took the opportunity of chatting with the employee to seed their cover story more fully, asking whether airport staff had screened their luggage. “The boxes contain amplifiers,” he explained, adding that the cargo was fragile and would be compromised if put through an X-ray machine.
Mr. Taylor came down a few minutes later, and just before noon, they flagged a taxi and headed for Shin Osaka Station, a hub of the shinkansen bullet train. Mr. Zayek had traveled to Japan twice before the escape and had learned his way around the Japanese train system. He walked to the counter and purchased two tickets for Tokyo.
As Messrs. Taylor and Zayek were checking into their hotel room in Osaka, Mr. Ghosn was having a leisurely morning with his youngest daughter, who was 27. He packed some bags. Ms. Ghosn’s return flight to the U.S. provided a convenient cover to send out some of her father’s personal belongings ahead of his escape.
They went to lunch, probably for the last time in Tokyo. If anything went wrong, it would be the last meal Mr. Ghosn would eat outside a jail cell for a long time—maybe forever. The pair chose a restaurant called We Are the Farm, a trendy farm-to-table eatery in a former dry cleaner located in the chic Azabu Juban neighborhood. The Ghosns loved this side of Japan. The food was excellent and the atmosphere lively. After lunch, they stopped by the house again to drop off Mr. Ghosn and pick up his daughter’s luggage. Mr. Ghosn pushed five suitcases to the garage, where his driver was waiting. Ms. Ghosn looked at the unusually large amount of baggage. She told the driver that she had too much and would need to drop some off for a friend to carry back to the U.S. Mr. Ghosn has said his own family played no role in the escape; his daughter hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Before they drove off, Mr. Ghosn told the driver to take the rest of the day off. He would call him again in two days, he said. At 2:05 p.m., the car carrying Ms. Ghosn pulled up in front of the Grand Hyatt. She shook hands with the younger Mr. Taylor, who had checked in to the hotel the previous day, and he took two of her suitcases up to his room. She got back into the car and headed for nearby Haneda Airport. 
At 2:30 p.m. precisely, Mr. Ghosn pushed open the front door of his two-story home and stepped outside. The moment before he crossed the threshold, he was Carlos Ghosn, revered auto executive fighting to clear his name. As soon as he stepped across it to execute his plan, at best he would become Carlos Ghosn the international fugitive. If he was caught, it would be back to jail, perhaps for the rest of his life.
Dressed in a dark jacket and scarf with a woolen cap and sunglasses, he walked west on the main road. He paused and looked over his shoulder before continuing. He had recently complained to a court that Nissan’s security contractors spied on his every move.
Nissan wasn’t the only monitor. Cameras had been installed outside and inside the foyer of the home by the court, checked once a week by the prosecutors. In addition, a constellation of security cameras on homes and buildings captured every step of Mr. Ghosn’s 25-minute stroll from his spacious rented house to the Grand Hyatt.
It was a brisk, sunny winter Sunday ahead of the New Year’s holiday, one of the few times Japan shuts down. It was the perfect time to escape. Within a half-hour, Mr. Ghosn had reached the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo. Keeping his head down, he made his way through the lobby to the guest-room elevators. He got out on the ninth floor, walked down the hall, and entered room 933, where the younger Mr. Taylor was waiting.
The Nozomi express pulled into Shinagawa Station in Tokyo at 3:22 p.m., and Messrs. Taylor and Zayek, both wearing baseball caps, got off and headed for the north ticket gate. They exited the station on the western side and boarded a taxi for the Grand Hyatt.
For more than 30 minutes Mr. Ghosn had been in Peter Taylor’s room, where he’d changed clothes and was making small talk.
By the time Michael Taylor and Mr. Zayek reached the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, Peter was there waiting, having come down shortly before their arrival. When the two older men appeared, Peter immediately made for the elevator. The trio wanted to appear to be strangers in case the surveillance camera footage was reviewed. More than anything, Mr. Taylor wanted to ensure that his son wasn’t seen as an accomplice.
Michael and Peter Taylor, along with Mr. Zayek, entered the ninth-floor room. It was the first time Mr. Ghosn had met his would-be rescuers face-to-face.
“It’s time to go home,” Michael Taylor told Mr. Ghosn, greeting him with a large smile.
Seven minutes later, the four men left the room with Mr. Ghosn’s luggage. Peter Taylor headed to the hotel parking lot and took a taxi to the airport, where he was booked on a flight to China. Michael Taylor wanted his son to get out of the country before anything potentially illegal happened. Messrs. Ghosn and Zayek
and Michael Taylor left through the main entrance of the hotel and hailed a cab to Shinagawa Station. Mr. Ghosn now wore a pair of black, thick-rimmed glasses and a surgical mask, a common sight in Tokyo during flu season, as a convenient means of preventing people from recognizing the face of Japan’s most notorious criminal suspect. The station was packed with holiday travelers. The three men headed for the train platform.

Mr. Ghosn entered carriage 1 with Mr. Zayek. Michael Taylor entered carriage 2. The train left the station for Osaka at 4:55 p.m. The men tried to regularly keep on the move during the journey. Mr. Ghosn’s face had been a fixture on TV and plastered on magazine covers for two decades. Seeing him there would be like spotting Steve Jobs on a New York City subway. Mr. Taylor had given him advice about how to behave, urging him not to speak in case people recognized his voice. Don’t catch anybody’s eye, he counseled. Keep walking, but look straight down to the ground.
The bullet train arrived at Shin Osaka Station at 7:20 p.m. The men filed out and headed to the south ticket gate. They walked with military precision in single file, a few paces apart: Michael Taylor, then Mr. Ghosn, then Mr. Zayek.
They piled into another taxi bound for the Star Gate Hotel, with Mr. Ghosn and Mr. Taylor in the back seat and Mr. Zayek up front, next to the driver. Once in the taxi, Mr. Ghosn, who had remained bundled up for nearly three hours on the train, removed his mask to take a few deep breaths of fresh air. He also took off the hat but put them both back on a few minutes later.
At 8:15 p.m., the trio walked through the entrance of the Star Gate Hotel. Messrs. Ghosn and Zayek went directly to the 46th floor, where the boxes were kept, while Michael Taylor went to the front desk before going to his room on the 40th floor, grabbing a piece of luggage and the guitar case before heading up to meet the other two.
Mr. Ghosn took his time, inspecting the box carefully. He turned to Michael Taylor and Mr. Zayek, resolute. He wanted to get out of Japan that night. There would be no dry run.
While Messrs. Ghosn and Zayek rested and made preparations in the hotel room, Michael Taylor returned to the private-jet terminal to ensure that the plane would leave as planned and to double-check that the personnel there had received the message that their bags shouldn’t be scanned. Most charter airlines don’t require bags to be checked, so passengers can choose their level of security. Obviously, if the airport were to insist on opening the case containing Mr. Ghosn, the trio might never leave Japan. Mr. Taylor walked into the terminal at 9 p.m., catching the staff by surprise.
Ms. Tokunaga, the English-speaking employee, asked what he was doing there. Passengers who fly on private jets don’t often show up 90 minutes before departure.
“Are we going through a security check when we leave?” Mr. Taylor asked.
Ms. Tokunaga told him that there would be no security check. She then called Mr. Matsui, her manager, who was with the pilot. The pilot and Mr. Taylor talked briefly on the phone. Mr. Taylor hung up and said he would head back to the hotel, but not before handing Ms. Tokunaga an envelope.
“Here’s a tip for you,” he said. Inside, Ms. Tokunaga saw a stack of 10,000-yen notes, each worth roughly S100, held together by an elastic hair band. She had never seen that much money at once. She figured there must have been at least $10,000 in there.
Ms. Tokunaga told him she couldn’t take it. Tips were forbidden. Mr. Taylor declined to take back the envelope and told her to share it with her co-workers. He reminded her that he was returning for the Olympics. Ms. Tokunaga didn’t want to offend Mr. Taylor, so she held on to the envelope. Shortly after Mr. Taylor left, Mr. Matsui, the terminal manager, dialed Ms. Tokunaga. He had been surprised by Mr.
Taylor’s sudden appearance and wanted to know what was going on.
“I think he just wanted to check the status of the aircraft,” Ms. Tokunaga said. Mr. Matsui asked to talk to Mr. Taylor, but he had already left for the hotel. Mr. Matsui made his way to the terminal and again asked why Mr. Taylor had come so far ahead of the departure time. Ms. Tokunaga told Mr. Matsui about the envelope of cash. It presented Mr. Matsui with a conundrum. He had handled ground services at the terminal for the past three years. He was used to foreigners who flew in and started handing out cash, not understanding that that was not done in Japan. But no one had ever handed him an envelope stuffed with such a huge amount.
Mr. Matsui dialed a manager at another agency to discuss whether they could accept the money. They decided it should be returned politely and in a way that wouldn’t offend Mr. Taylor, which could jeopardize future business. Mr. Matsui decided to wait until the last moment to return it to minimize any conversation.
When Mr. Taylor got back to the hotel, he asked for a luggage trolley to be sent to his room. A few minutes later, porters removed two suitcases from the room and took them to the lobby.
Mr. Taylor headed to the 46th floor and entered the room around 9:30 p.m. The private jet was due to leave the Osaka terminal, bound for Istanbul, in one hour.

Mr. Ghosn stood contemplating the box that was supposed to smuggle him aboard the jet. It was the last hurdle—and by far the biggest. Up until now, he had not technically done anything wrong. He was allowed to travel around the country. But he couldn’t explain this away. Nonetheless, it was the box he had chosen. It was that or a jail cell.
Taking a final deep breath, Mr. Ghosn lay down on the base of the box, and Mr. Taylor pulled a sheet off the bed and laid it over him. Mr. Taylor then put his guitar on top of Mr. Ghosn and tried closing the box. It fit, but the guitar pressed down on Mr. Ghosn. He would have to spend at least an hour in there, and he needed to be comfortable. The sheet stayed. It would be the only camouflage if airport staff decided they needed to look inside. The guitar case would be placed on top of the box.
Mr. Taylor could sense that Mr. Ghosn was nervous.
“Have you ever gone scuba diving?” he asked Mr. Ghosn.
“Yes,” said Mr. Ghosn.
Mr. Taylor told him to imagine that he was scuba diving and mimed taking slow, controlled breaths. He looked him in the eyes, communicating calm and confidence.
“Breathe slowly,” he reminded Mr. Ghosn.
Mr. Taylor lowered the top of the box, and everything went black.
This article is adapted from “Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn” by Wall Street Journal reporters Nick Kostov and Sean McLain, to be published on Aug. 9,2022, by Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp).
.

U.S. GIVES BREAKTHROUGH BATTERY TECHNOLOGY TO CHINA

The former UniEnergy Technologies office in Mukilteo, Wash. Taxpayers spent $15 million on research to build a breakthrough battery. Then the U.S. government gave it to China.

When a group of engineers and researchers gathered in a warehouse in Mukilteo, Wash., 10 years ago, they knew they were onto something big. They scrounged up tables and chairs, cleared out space in the parking lot for experiments and got to work.
They were building a battery — a vanadium redox flow battery — based on a design created by two dozen U.S. scientists at a government lab. The batteries were about the size of a refrigerator, held enough energy to power a house, and could be used for decades. The engineers pictured people plunking them down next to their air conditioners, attaching solar panels to them, and everyone living happily ever after off the grid.
“It was beyond promise,” said Chris Howard, one of the engineers who worked there for a U.S. company called UniEnergy. “We were seeing it functioning as designed, as expected.”

Chris Howard was an engineer at UniEnergy Technologies.
But that’s not what happened. Instead of the batteries becoming the next great American success story, the warehouse is now shuttered and empty. All the employees who worked there were laid off. And more than 5,200 miles away, a Chinese company is hard at work making the batteries in Dalian, China.

The Chinese company didn’t steal this technology. It was given to them — by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer. An investigation by NPR and the Northwest News Network found the federal agency allowed the technology and jobs to move overseas, violating its own licensing rules while failing to intervene on behalf of U.S. workers in multiple instances.
Now, China has forged ahead, investing millions into the cutting-edge green technology that was supposed to help keep the U.S. and its economy out front.

Department of Energy officials declined NPR’s request for an interview to explain how the technology that cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars ended up in China. After NPR sent department officials written questions outlining the timeline of events, the federal agency terminated the license with the Chinese company, Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd.

“DOE takes America’s manufacturing obligations within its contracts extremely seriously,” the department said in a written statement. “If DOE determines that a contractor who owns a DOE-funded patent or downstream licensee is in violation of its U.S. manufacturing obligations, DOE will explore all legal remedies.”
Several U.S. companies have tried to get a license to make the batteries

The department is now conducting an internal review of the licensing of vanadium battery technology and whether this license — and others — have violated U.S. manufacturing requirements, the statement said.

Forever Energy, a Bellevue, Wash., based company, is one of several U.S. companies that have been trying to get a license from the Department of Energy to make the batteries. Joanne Skievaski, Forever Energy’s chief financial officer, has been trying to get hold of a license for more than a year and called the department’s decision to allow foreign manufacturing “mind boggling.”

Joanne Skievaski is the chief financial officer of Forever Energy in Bellevue, Wash. The company has been trying to get a license from the Department of Energy to make the batteries for over a year.

This is technology made from taxpayer dollars,” Skievaski said. “It was invented in a national lab. (Now) it’s deployed in China, and it’s held in China. To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.”

The idea for this vanadium redox battery began in the basement of a government lab, three hours southeast of Seattle, called Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It was 2006, and more than two dozen scientists began to suspect that a special mix of acid and electrolyte could hold unusual amounts of energy without degrading. They turned out to be right.

It took six years and more than 15 million taxpayer dollars for the scientists to uncover what they believed was the perfect vanadium battery recipe. Others had made similar batteries with vanadium, but this mix was twice as powerful and did not appear to degrade the way cellphone batteries or even car batteries do. The researchers found the batteries capable of charging and recharging for as long as 30 years.

An employee looks at a vanadium flow battery in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Battery Reliability Laboratory in 2021.
Andrea Starr/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Gary Yang, the lead scientist on the project, said he was excited to see if he could make the batteries outside the lab. The lab encourages scientists to do just that, in an effort to bring critical new technology into the marketplace. The lab and the U.S. government still hold the patents, because U.S. taxpayers paid for the research.

In 2012, Yang applied to the Department of Energy for a license to manufacture and sell the batteries.
The agency issued the license, and Yang launched UniEnergy Technologies. He hired engineers and researchers. But he soon ran into trouble. He said he couldn’t persuade any U.S. investors to come aboard.

“I talked to almost all major investment banks; none of them (wanted to) invest in batteries,” Yang said in an interview, adding that the banks wanted a return on their investments faster than the batteries would turn a profit.

He said a fellow scientist connected him with a Chinese businessman named Yanhui Liu and a company called Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd., along with its parent company, and he jumped at the chance to have them invest and even help manufacture the batteries.

At first, UniEnergy Technologies did the bulk of the battery assembly in the warehouse. But over the course of the next few years, more and more of the manufacturing and assembling began to shift to Rongke Power, Chris Howard said. In 2017, Yang formalized the relationship and granted Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. an official sublicense, allowing the company to make the batteries in China.

Any company can choose to manufacture in China. But in this case, the rules are pretty clear. Yang’s original license requires him to sell a certain number of batteries in the U.S., and it says those batteries must be “substantially manufactured” here.
In an interview, Yang acknowledged that he did not do that. UniEnergy Technologies sold a few batteries in the U.S., but not enough to meet its requirements. The ones it did sell, including in one instance to the U.S. Navy, were made in China. But Yang said in all those years, neither the lab nor the department questioned him or raised any issues.

Then in 2019, Howard said, UniEnergy Technologies officials gathered all the engineers in a meeting room. He said supervisors told them they would have to work in China at Rongke Power Co. for four months at a time.
“It was unclear, certainly to myself and other engineers, what the plan was,” said Howard, who now works for Forever Energy.

Yang acknowledges that he wanted his U.S. engineers to work in China. But he says it was because he thought Rongke Power could help teach them critical skills.

Yang was born in China but is a U.S. citizen and got his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. He said he wanted to manufacture the entire battery in the U.S., but that the U.S. does not have the supply chain he required. He said China is more advanced when it comes to manufacturing and engineering utility-scale batteries.

“In this field — manufacturing, engineering — China is ahead of the U.S.,” Yang said. “Many wouldn’t believe [it].”
He said he didn’t send the battery and his engineers abroad to help China. He said the engineers in that country were helping his UniEnergy Technologies employees and helping him get his batteries built.

But news reports at the time show the moves were helping China. The Chinese government launched several large demonstration projects and announced millions of dollars in funding for large-scale vanadium batteries.

As battery work took off in China, Yang was facing more financial trouble in the U.S. So he made a decision that would again keep the technology from staying in the U.S.

The EU has strict rules about where companies manufacture products.

In 2021, Yang transferred the battery license to a European company based in the Netherlands. The company, Vanadis Power, told NPR it initially planned to continue making the batteries in China and then would set up a factory in Germany, eventually hoping to manufacture in the U.S., said Roelof Platenkamp, the company’s founding partner.

Vanadis Power needed to manufacture batteries in Europe because the European Union has strict rules about where companies manufacture products, Platenkamp said.
“I have to be a European company, certainly a non-Chinese company, in Europe,” Platenkamp said in an interview with NPR.

Gary Yang launched UniEnergy Technologies after the Department of Energy issued him a license to manufacture and sell the vanadium batteries.

But the U.S. has these types of rules, too. Any transfer of a U.S. government license requires U.S. government approval so that manufacturing doesn’t move overseas. The U.S. has lost significant jobs in recent years in areas where it first forged ahead, such as solar panels, drones and telecom equipment. Still, when UniEnergy requested approval, it apparently had no trouble getting it.

On July 7, 2021, a top official at UniEnergy Technologies emailed a government manager at the lab where the battery was created. The UniEnergy official said they were making a deal with Vanadis, according to emails reviewed by NPR, and were going to transfer the license to Vanadis.

“We’re working to finalize a deal with Vanadis Power and believe they have the right blend of technical expertise,” the email from UniEnergy Technologies said. “Our transaction with Vanadis is ready to go pending your approval …”

The government manager responded that he needed confirmation before transferring the license and emailed a second employee at UniEnergy. The second employee responded an hour and a half later, and the license was transferred to Vanadis Power.

Whether the manager or anyone else at the lab or Department of Energy thought to check during that hour and a half or thereafter whether Vanadis Power was an American company, or whether it intended to manufacture in the U.S., is unclear. Vanadis’ own website said it planned to make the batteries in China.

In response, department officials said they review each transfer for compliance and said that new rules put in place last summer by the Biden administration will close loopholes and keep more manufacturing here.

But agency officials acknowledged that its reviews often rely on “good faith disclosures” by the companies, which means if companies such as UniEnergy Technologies don’t say anything, the U.S. government may never know.

Joanne Skievaski said she and others from the company repeatedly warned Department of Energy officials that the UniEnergy license was not in compliance.

That’s a problem that has plagued the department for years, according to government investigators.
In 2018, the Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Energy lacked resources to properly monitor its licenses, relied on antiquated computer systems, and didn’t have consistent policies across its labs.

In this case, it was an American company, Forever Energy, that raised concerns about the license with UniEnergy more than a year ago. Joanne Skievaski said she and others from the company repeatedly warned department officials that the UniEnergy license was not in compliance. In emails NPR has reviewed, department officials told them it was.

“How is it that the national lab did not require U.S. manufacturing?” Skievaski asked. “Not only is it a violation of the license, it’s a violation to our country.”

Now that the Department of Energy has revoked the license, Skievaski said she hopes Forever Energy will be able to acquire it or obtain a similar license. The company plans to open a factory in Louisiana next year and begin manufacturing. She bristles at the idea that U.S. engineers aren’t up to the challenge.

“That’s hogwash,” she said. “We are ready to go with this technology.”

Still, she says it will be difficult for any American company at this point to catch up. Industry trade reports currently list Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. as the top manufacturer of vanadium redox flow batteries worldwide. Skievaski also worries about whether China will stop making the batteries once an American company is granted the right to start making them.

That may be unlikely. Chinese news reports say the country is about to bring online one of the largest battery farms the world has ever seen. The reports say the entire farm is made up of vanadium redox flow batteries.

Hapless Joe Biden’s secret plan is, most folks won’t own a car in the future, they’ll ride in autonomous EV cars. 

As California hits its predictably summer temperatures, Democrats citing Climate Change are pushing universally electric cars and the demise of the combustion engine even though electric companies are now begging folks to reduce their energy consumption by not charging their EV cars. But electricity may be the least of our worries with the prospect of universally electric cars. Cobalt is a critical element in the production of lithium batteries used in Electric cars.

Mined by mostly Chinese Companies, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Canada or Morocco, cobalt-containing batteries are critical to companies from Samsung Electronics Co. to Volkswagen AG.

China now controls essentially 100% of the Cobalt world market. As noted in this report in Bloomberg back in 2018, China was gobbling up Cobalt mines and the companies that process it. If America were to go all EV, China would be the sole source of Cobalt today.

Democrat leaders who push electric cars have no answer for this and other related supply chain issues for the development and production of electric cars. To say the Democrats are in the back pocket of the Communist Chinese Government is an understatement.

Democrats like Sisolak, Biden and Newsom are essentially Chinese assets clearly doing their bidding. They know these facts yet they continue to push China’s policies of electric cars intentionally.

The Biden Pentagon is even pursuing electric tanks and planes.

China wants the U.S. to replace its gas and diesel

1. To put us at a competitive disadvantage and

2. They’ll have a strangle hold on the U.S. economy.

Sisolak has allowed China to buy up Nevada mining interests along with Nevada farm land and water rights. China now owns over 44k single family homes in Nevada, making the Chinese the largest landlord in Nevada. They now own, through Blackrock, many MGM casino hotels on the strip. Sisolak bought 588K PPE gear from the Chinese instead of from American companies.

CV19 and the war in Ukraine have proven the failure of globalism creating massive disruptions in supply chains. America must be energy independent to be truly free, which means oil and gas, not Chinese Cobalt EV cars for the few.

DRILL,DRILL, DRILL!!!!

 

 

 

 

 
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This iconic company is in the opinion of this blogger, heading down a path of extinction due to the politically correct thinking and going along with the thinking that there will only be an all electric future for automobiles!

The CEO, Mary Barra, who will be able to retire with a retirement fund approaching $100 million, a current compensation package highest in the auto industry will then leave the hapless GM with a self imposed inability to manufacture cars that people will actually want or be able to afford.

Becoming chummy with the Biden administration supporting its NO ICE vehicle policy in the near future, will be a big mistake.

Can anyone other that delusional GM management, think that the people driving cars in the future USA will ever ONLY have electric cars? NEVER!!!!

Both Joe Biden and Mary Barra will be long dead as GM winds don to certain bankruptcy in the future…setting its goals on all EV’s, but neither of them will have any consequences of the demise of this fine company.

It is unrealistic to think that the cost and convenience of a 5 minute gas-up will be replaced with a long line and uncertain ways to recharge for 30 minutes or a hour or more makes any sense on a public way.

Imagine your EV plugged on a public street, attached to a cord in an urban setting. Will the local gang members or vandals steal the cord or the car?

How will all that electricity generation be possible for all those e-cars when now we have shortages????

The Internal combustion engine can be refitted to run on hydrogen and ammonia…the fuels of the future…(hydrogen is the most abundant gas in the universe).

I feel sorry for all those employees at GM, FORD and other car manufacturers who have taken the path to self destruction with only EV’s in their future….

Why Electric Vehicles Are Not the Future

Many vouch for electric cars as the future of traveling. These vehicles are considered safe for the environment because they do not produce any emissions by burning fuel.

But electric cars may not be the pollution-free future we all envisage. This is primarily because electric cars are not as environmental-friendly as you may think.
Problems if all cars were electric

If all the cars in the world were to turn electric, there could be major effects on vehicle performance and the economy at large.

The current technology does not put electric cars at par with fuel-run cars. An average electric car travels less on a full charge than a fuel car travels on a full tank.

To compensate for this, all the governments in the world would have to replace gas stations with charging stations. This would be an expensive ordeal.

Electric cars are known to provide more torque, leading to faster pick-up. But fuel cars can achieve greater max speeds.

Even if technological advancements solve the problem of speed, the batteries of electric cars pose a serious environmental threat.

Electric car batteries add to electronic waste. Also when these batteries expire, they emit a lot of carbon dioxide, adding to the problem of climate change.
Why electric vehicle are not the future?

When you imagine the future, do you imagine clean, unpolluted air? That dream is not possible with electric vehicles.

Indirectly, electric cars cause pollution by using fuel-generated electricity. Even the car batteries add to pollution during manufacturing.

Lastly, hydrogen cars will take over the car market because they are a safer and more efficient alternative.
Why electric cars are not the solution?

There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, electric cars are not friendly towards the environment. They add to pollution indirectly by using electricity.

Compared to gas cars, electric cars offer a subpar performance. They even have less range, meaning you can travel longer distances in a fuel car.
Are electric cars the future or not?

The US government is pushing for the use of electric cars. In collaboration with private organizations, the government has pledged billions of dollars into the effort.

Even if the government manages to construct charging stations and create longer lasting batteries, will electric cars become environmental-friendly?

The answer is: no. For example, 60% of the electricity in the US is generated using fossil fuels. Plus, the manufacturing of car batteries creates a lot of pollution.

Here are 10 reasons why electric cars are not the future of clean traveling –

Cost – As of now, electric cars are way more expensive than their fuel counterparts.
Performance – Electric cars do not have an internal combustion engine, resulting in poorer performance.
Pollution – They don’t emit greenhouse gases but need electricity to charge which is produced using fossil fuels.
Inconvenience – Only major metropolitan cities have battery charging stations.
Waste – Electric car batteries will add to electronic waste.
Capacity – A fuel tank has more capacity than an electric car battery.
Emission – When electric car batteries decay they start releasing CO2 gas.
Incompatibility – Electric cars are less compatible with solar and wind energy.
Competition – The universal emphasis on electric cars is neglecting the research on other alternative fuels.
Backward – Electric cars are less compatible with autonomous driving technology.

Electric cars are far from being a permanent solution to pollution and climate change. The idea that electric cars do not add to pollution is a myth.

Fossil fuels are burned to produce electricity in many countries. The same electricity powers electric car batteries. Indirectly, electric cars contribute to pollution.

Replacing gas cars with electric cars will be expensive. All gas stations will have to convert to charging stations. This seems impractical.
What the supporters of electric cars don’t understand is that electric cars also cause pollution. They use fuel-generated electricity to recharge.

Then there is the battery which needs a lot of material for production. Mining these materials also adds to pollution, and almost all come from unfriendly sources-China, Congo etc….

Eventually, hydrogen fuels will take over before electric cars have the opportunity to upgrade and become more efficient. This is why electric cars are not the future.
What are the negatives of electric vehicles?

Electric cars may not produce any emissions themselves, but they contribute to pollution nevertheless.

Charging an electric car battery requires electricity which comes from the burning of fossil fuels.

Besides this, electric cars have other negatives. The production of batteries requires raw materials like copper, iron, and aluminum. It also needs rare materials like nickel and cobalt.

To obtain these materials, mining is required. This activity causes a lot of pollution. Then, these materials have to be supplied which also adds to the problem.
Why electric cars are the future?

Electric cars can become the immediate future, but not because they are the solution to the global climate crisis.

Many governments are pushing for the adoption of electric cars to reduce their net carbon emissions. For example, Canada will not allow the sale of fuel cars from 2035.

Even the US and the UK are onboard. In fact, the UK plans to ban the sale of gas cars in 2030, five years earlier than Canada.

Prospects like these hint at a future with electric cars on the road.
Car batteries add to electronic waste

Although newer innovations are trying to solve this problem, the biggest problem with electric cars is range.

An average gas car can outlast an average electric car in the market. Also, electric cars do not have access to charging stations.

Some metropolitan cities have this facility. But if you drive to a rural location you can forget about finding a station to recharge your car.

Another concern is the car battery. Electric car batteries are temperature sensitive. High heat wears the battery down faster while extreme cold reduces the car’s range.
Hydrogen cars are the future not electric

The real future of traveling are hydrogen cars, not electric. They offer a more efficient and clean solution to the climate crisis.

Hydrogen cars offer more range than electric cars. This is because the energy storage in hydrogen cars is densely packed.

Refueling your car with hydrogen takes as much time as refueling a gas car. But most electric cars can take up to hours to recharge.

The only problem is obtaining pure hydrogen. Despite being the most common element in the universe, Hydrogen cannot be found in its pure form on earth.
Biggest problem with electric cars

There are many problems with electric cars. They may seem harmless due to zero carbon emissions of their own, but don’t be fooled.

By using electricity, electric cars indirectly add to pollution. Even their batteries lead to CO2 emissions once they start decaying.

In terms of performance, they are no match for gas cars. The lackluster performance of electric cars boils down to the lack of an internal combustion engine.

When it comes to range, electric cars go down quickly. Compared to gas stations, there aren’t enough charging stations to support electric cars.

Currently, electric cars are not very affordable. For most people, gas cars are more accessible and manageable.

Even though many governments are banning the sale of fuel cars, electric cars are not the way to go.

Contrary to popular belief, electric cars cause pollution. They may not do it directly, but they use electricity which comes from non-renewable sources.

In terms of range and performance, electric cars cannot compete with gas cars. Also, the current infrastructure is more conducive to gas cars than electric.

Lastly, recharging an electric car can take hours. Some models have faster charging time, but it is still slower than filling gas at a station.
FAQ relating to Why electric vehicles are not the future
Why gas cars are better than electric?

Gas or fuel cars can out-drive electric cars because of more fuel capacity. Electric cars cannot travel that far due to current technological restraints.

The economy supports fuel cars as you can find a gas station easily. Electric cars will have a hard time traveling long distances because of few or no charging stations.
Will gas cars be worthless in 5 years?

No, gas cars will not be worthless in the next 5 years. However, many governments across the world are promoting electric vehicles over fuel vehicles.

Some governments have set a deadline to ban all gas vehicles.
Will gas cars go away?

Eventually they will, ( not in our lifetime). Fuel cars are undoubtedly harmful for the environment due to emissions.

A much safer alternative is bio-fuel. It does not release any harmful emission and maintains the vehicle’s performance.
Are gas cars going to be banned?

Yes, many countries are gearing towards a ban on the sale of gas cars. For example, the US government passed a law banning the purchase of fuel vehicles by 2035.

The ban does not apply to space and military vehicles.
Key Takeaways

Dumping of electric car batteries adds to electronic waste.
Electric car batteries emit greenhouse gases like CO2.
The production of electric car batteries leads to a lot of pollution.
Electric vehicles are less compatible with wind and solar energy.
Hydrogen cars are more sustainable than electric vehicles.
The US government has issued a law banning the purchase of gas vehicles by 2035.
The global infrastructure will not be able to support an electric car-only economy.