Magnet prices

This sUbject is of. Big relevance to all of us doing something in a field of e-motors ; even the ones who are only buying motors for their projects . Since the last year magnet prices are going up everyday in China since they have the most of earths rear earth magnets . Now i knew this will happen ; but it seems to fast . So as i see it ; Chinese gouverment steps out and controls the export of their magnets ( they stated almost a year ago that they will sell only products with magnet ; but not rear earth magnets as a building material ) . After that , prices double or more . We had all factories we work with sending us mail about magnet price going up and all of the products price goes 30 percent up. Thats the manipulation of green technology market and i would like to know your opinion on this subject and what do you think about this trend ?
You can also tell me i am wrong ; i will not be offended ; i had little time to investigate this so i started the discussion

My raw magnet costs have gone up almost tenfold in the past three years.

Export quota manipulation by China is a big worry for our motor prices. Fortunately there are substantial rare earth mineral deposits in other countries (Australia, USA, Canada). In the past it was unviable to develop these resources due to the inability to compete with China's low production costs (low wages, lack of health & safety concerns for mine/processing workers, lax environmental standards). Compounding this over recent years, rare earth resource investment and development has been slow in countries like Australia due to volatility in the commodity prices due to China's continually changing stance on export quotas. It was considered a high risk that should China retract such export restrictions and thus lower prices, startup ventures would suddently find themselves unviable. However with a steadily climbing long term price trend now accepted, It has gotten to the point now where countries like Australia are well underway with mining infrastructure (and hopefully processing) development to compete on the global market. Unfortunately it takes several years to get these online. I predict Neodymium magnet prices will stabilise over the next few years.....but at a higher price than over the last 2 decades.

See also;
http://seekingalpha.com/article/234...eijings-green-revolution-means-for-rest-of-us

http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=21589
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=21071
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=21798

Thanks johnrobholmes and boostjuice i read the commments and also the other places on es
So Australia is one of those countries having rare earth mags ..and i know some other produce them to, but are the prices lower , same or ?
Cause guys maybe its a good thing..Let them raise everything and maybe then finally we will manufacture things and lower our own prices in our own economy . Also that would keep ideas and patents in safe place.
Look at for example outrunner : Magnets , stator - laminated steel , outer rotor - steel , and a cnc - aluminium fabriacation. If magnets are avaible to me in Australia at the same price , the cnc fabrication could be the same : i would have only bigger price of steel and thats it.... So , i guess me and Hal would be happy making motors in Australia. But guess where it falls down.... Magnets need to be specially made for us in appropriate size - probably a lot oF cash ( CHINA -FREE ) , CNC fabrication with same machine : GUYS IN EUROPE COULD LITERALLY BUY A CAR FROM DOING SINGLE CNC ON SOME SMALL SHITTY PART (CHINA - normal price - could be done with 30 percent bigger price elswhere and not 100000% bigger price)
So i would be very happy if somebody introduced us to Australian company that wants to produce for example colossus with us without going sky high with prices and us buying 10 0000 pieces from them so they could be happy ....... I dont know about your continent but on ours thats a no - go , because everybody wants a sweet life without sweat...

IMHO boostjuice nailed it perfectly. China is getting more affluent, more wise, and more powerful. They are starting to "make markets" in the financial sense instead of just following markets.

There are significant rare earth deposits outside of China. As boostjuice said, they produced at a cost that was noncompetitive to the west, so western mines shut down over the last decade. Here is the problem, if the Chinese price rise is artificial, and not inflation driven; the west can tool up, both financially and with hardware to mine the ore, and once again, China could cut prices and bankrupt the "new" western rare earth mines. I would not want to be making the business decision today on whether to capitalize western rare earth mines. This is one the government should underwrite to ensure access to rare earth elements for strategic purposes.

One thing for sure, these prices are likely the new norm. Personally, I think we are all going to be surprised by the price increases that are coming in the next 5 years in all consumables.

Do induction motors offer us any hope of an alternative?

I know Tesla is using one.

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/induction-versus-dc-brushless-motors

neptronix said:

Do induction motors offer us any hope of an alternative?...

Click to expand...

Yes. Last time I looked there was about a 3% to 5% efficiency hit for going to an induction motor... but with increasing battery capacity, a few % efficiency hit is decreasing in importance except for "high performance" applications. There the major system hit is the inefficiency generating waste heat.

Hopefully, someone will look BEYOND the bottom line and get behind non-Chinese rare earth production, regardless of what China does. I have stated this before and I'm sure that many others feel the same. I will happily pay more than double the current market prices for any items that are not manufactured in Asia. Again, nothing against Asia. They should make stuff for themselves. Shipping everything all over the world before it ever gets used has to stop. Big money a-holes manipulating markets through deceit has to stop. If you buy from a company or country that is playing this game, you are supporting terrorists of the worst kind.

I'd like my magnets and lithium to come from Utah. I don't care how much it costs. The future "cost" for all of these "savings" we've experienced during the industrial revolution is something none of us can afford to pay. Industrial activity really hurts the planet that supports us. We should be going about industrial activity in the most environmentally sensitive way possible, which isn't cheap. Everything we make from now on should be extremely reliable, last forever, and be absolutely necessary item for the advancement of our society. Cheap crap costs more in the long run. We all know this. We should refuse to buy disposable products that waste these resources and cause all of this damage for nothing. It should be illegal to produce throw away items made with non renewable natural resources. The resources need to be reserved to create reliable technology that will last for years and create more power than it took to produce.

Think how many solar panels could be made from all of the resources used to create I-phones and LCD tv's........
Think about how many electric vehicles could be built with the magnets and batteries that go into the RC market and get trashed before doing anything useful. Yeah, driving RC cars is fun. I'd much rather be in a full size one though.....accomplishing an actual task......while also having fun.

So, for all of those potential manufacturers and inventors out there, just try to buy your supplies and get your products made by people that care about the planet and are as local to you as possible. Mark your products up enough to make it worth your while, and sell them to people that understand why the prices are what they are and that appreciate the alternative to Chinese disposable crap.

Marko in specific......if the little Colossus motors were wound like Thud wound mine, with the endcap I designed, and a skirt bearing, and were built by craftsmen that were your neighbors, I would gladly pay $700 US for them. Just as an example.

Thanks bigmoose , i agree with you all . I have been to china many times on my regular job and what i see is very upseting .. I realize that next year is going to be very hard for all countries..
Anyway this is exact copy of mail sent to me by one big motor producer ; Due to the price of rare earth material has been continually rasing this year, and the increasing rate is extremely high. The price for Neodymium and Dysprosium-Ferrum was 270,000 RMB per ton and 1,200,000 RMB per ton at the end of 2010, and the price has been 980,000 RMB per ton for Neodymium and 4,800,000 RMB per ton for Dysprosium-Ferrum since May 20, 2011

Agreed , luckely the big one is made by other factory ; but their prices are way bigger than we tought they will be and now is decision time since playtime is almost over . is there a company interested in making motors in quantity of 200 ? If thudster had a company for motors i would call him up tommorow . Any ideas where you would like big motor to be made except china ?

Holy crap, time to buy the Crystalyte HS i guess.

bigmoose said:

neptronix said:

Do induction motors offer us any hope of an alternative?...

Click to expand...

Yes. Last time I looked there was about a 3% to 5% efficiency hit for going to an induction motor... but with increasing battery capacity, a few % efficiency hit is decreasing in importance except for "high performance" applications. There the major system hit is the inefficiency generating waste heat.

Click to expand...

I'll need a new project to work on when I get back from my trip. The magnet prices put the kibosh on my AF motor – hence I am doing the trailer instead. I think it would be interesting to attempt an AF Induction motor though

Whatcha think? KF