BBC 1 - Panorama: The Electric Car Revolution – Winners and Losers. Wednesday at 19:30

[Sean.]

More should definitely be done for the local population though. It's painful viewing for the more conscious among us.

Is there such a thing as fair trade minerals? I doubt it.

Either locals are employed by the mine or they’re not - is it not that simple?

Glencore could have been stipulated to employ locals as a condition of their extraction license or whatever….but some ****ers in the govt lines their own pockets instead. It’s just another example of the basket-case of corrupt governments across Africa.

Tesla is the tall poppy that the press love to take aim at. But it’s a bit disingenuous to make it ‘their’ problem if they are reducing cobalt content in their products. Good for headlines.

 

[Adopado]

More should definitely be done for the local population though. It's painful viewing for the more conscious among us.

Is there such a thing as fair trade minerals? I doubt it.

If Australia got going with their own extensive reserves they would provide a potentially better managed source ... but other companies would still buy from the DRC so we wouldn't be helping change anything. When you look at the present state of the country and its many many problems ... not helped by the wild west approach of multinationals in exploiting resources ... the issue of cobalt mining is just one element of what appears to be a massive mess.

 

[Adryden10]

This was a pretty vacuous attempt to basically blame Tesla for all the ills of African corruption, Glencore and the poor living standards of Africans in general.

He kind of lost his way on the Glencore thing, he started out berating mostly Tesla for the squalid conditions that the 'freelance' miners were subjected to, then berated Tesla for using Glencore who were stopping the 'illegal 'mining taking their jobs away and forcing workers to work for them under controlled safer conditions... Isn't that what they should be doing? It got really lost at this stage, it felt as though he really didn't have a great deal to drudge up.

It got worse when there was a bit about freelancers digging mines illegally and the tunnels falling in on them - seemingly blaming Glencore for the illegal activities of others leading to their deaths, this was just incoherent.

But it verged on the absurd when Glencore were blamed for building walls to keep the illegal miners out and stop them killing themselves, but apparently they didn't build the walls high enough and some people had managed to scale the walls and injured or was it killed themselves?

I'm sorry but at what stage do people actually take responsibility for doing totally stupid things?

I'm not a fan or otherwise of Glencore but the program just didn't give any sound evidence to suggest that Glencore are doing anything wrong, in fact it seemed to be really struggling to say anything terrible about their operations.

The one thing I thought looked bad was a chemical spill, but the journalism was vague and lacked any evidence - they just showed what were probably unrelated pictures of pollution flowing into a river... what actually happened here looked bad but the journalism was shockingly poor and lacking any research.

He made very brief references to the fact that Tesla are trying hard to phase out Cobolt from their 'cheaper cars' altogether, and totally failed to mention that the 'cheaper cars' are going to be the ones where the big volumes are going to come from in the future.

Thougout the program they were panning to pictures of Elon Musk celebrating Teslas success at an AGM in a clear effort to juxtapose his excitement against the suffering of the African people.

I do feel sorry for those people, but are we supposed to spend our entire lives mourning the lives of people who are governed by corrupt officials and individuals alike. Is a person never allowed to be happy because there are other suffering.

The one thing that I came out with, that he got right, was that we should have all voted for greater scrutiny of the supply chain at the last AGM when the Nuns put up a motion to do it. I think Tesla are trying to do the right thing but they do probably need to do more to help the people, but it's not easy to achieve.

The trouble is programs like this, instead of working with Elon Musk and Tesla and trying to persuade them to go the extra mile (which I actually think they should) they virtually ignored all the good Stuff Tesla and Musk are doing and attempted to demonise the 'evil rich man' a person and a company who are genuinely trying to do the right thing.

If you demonise people like this they will generally turn their back on you and walk away, we're all human!

Terrible poorly researched poorly presented all round poor journalism.

 

[Adryden10]

Get impression nun's want more equitable distribution of cobalt wealth currently going to Glencore, middlemen, corrupt government officials etc and see the artisinal mines as at least providing much needed (although dangerous) work for the locals (the Glencore industrial mining practices provide little in way of jobs).

The Tesla approach to the problem is to remove cobalt from the battery chemistry, that's not going to help the locals. DRC and Glencore customers need to prod Glencore to be more philanthropic in the DRC cobalt mining business but that would probably be diverted to corrupt local officials.

Hmm not an easy one

I agree with this, it is balanced and well thought out unlike the demonising poor journalism in the program.

If journalist spent more time trying to be balanced and to highlight areas for improvement rather than demonise and create click bate headlines then perhaps the leaders would be more inclined to listen.

However how we actually tackle the issue of corruption in Africa and get the money to the people .... who knows... If they asked him properly and politely rather than demonising him, then perhaps it would be something that Elon could use his skills to effect.

 

[Adopado]

However how we actually tackle the issue of corruption in Africa and get the money to the people .... who knows... If they asked him properly and politely rather than demonising him, then perhaps it would be something that Elon could use his skills to effect.

It's much easier just to pick a few clips of him looking a little oddball ... it's borderline mocking of someone with Asperger's syndrome.

 

[Jeeves]

This was a pretty vacuous attempt to basically blame Tesla for all the ills of African corruption, Glencore and the poor living standards of Africans in general.

He kind of lost his way on the Glencore thing, he started out berating mostly Tesla for the squalid conditions that the 'freelance' miners were subjected to, then berated Tesla for using Glencore who were stopping the 'illegal 'mining taking their jobs away and forcing workers to work for them under controlled safer conditions... Isn't that what they should be doing? It got really lost at this stage, it felt as though he really didn't have a great deal to drudge up.

It got worse when there was a bit about freelancers digging mines illegally and the tunnels falling in on them - seemingly blaming Glencore for the illegal activities of others leading to their deaths, this was just incoherent.

But it verged on the absurd when Glencore were blamed for building walls to keep the illegal miners out and stop them killing themselves, but apparently they didn't build the walls high enough and some people had managed to scale the walls and injured or was it killed themselves?

I'm sorry but at what stage do people actually take responsibility for doing totally stupid things?

I'm not a fan or otherwise of Glencore but the program just didn't give any sound evidence to suggest that Glencore are doing anything wrong, in fact it seemed to be really struggling to say anything terrible about their operations.

The one thing I thought looked bad was a chemical spill, but the journalism was vague and lacked any evidence - they just showed what were probably unrelated pictures of pollution flowing into a river... what actually happened here looked bad but the journalism was shockingly poor and lacking any research.

He made very brief references to the fact that Tesla are trying hard to phase out Cobolt from their 'cheaper cars' altogether, and totally failed to mention that the 'cheaper cars' are going to be the ones where the big volumes are going to come from in the future.

Thougout the program they were panning to pictures of Elon Musk celebrating Teslas success at an AGM in a clear effort to juxtapose his excitement against the suffering of the African people.

I do feel sorry for those people, but are we supposed to spend our entire lives mourning the lives of people who are governed by corrupt officials and individuals alike. Is a person never allowed to be happy because there are other suffering.

The one thing that I came out with, that he got right, was that we should have all voted for greater scrutiny of the supply chain at the last AGM when the Nuns put up a motion to do it. I think Tesla are trying to do the right thing but they do probably need to do more to help the people, but it's not easy to achieve.

The trouble is programs like this, instead of working with Elon Musk and Tesla and trying to persuade them to go the extra mile (which I actually think they should) they virtually ignored all the good Stuff Tesla and Musk are doing and attempted to demonise the 'evil rich man' a person and a company who are genuinely trying to do the right thing.

If you demonise people like this they will generally turn their back on you and walk away, we're all human!

Terrible poorly researched poorly presented all round poor journalism.

I agree.

I think the programme fell beneath both the BBC's and Panorama's standards. Not because I think Tesla or Elon need defending in any way, but because the programme will do bugger all to improve the plight of those suffering.

I too feel sorry for the people being exploited in DRC, and I admire the nuns for trying to do something about it. I don't think they will get anywhere with it though. I reckon Tesla will focus on getting cobalt out of their batteries, and that won't help anyone in DRC.

 

[DigbyChicken]

More should definitely be done for the local population though. It's painful viewing for the more conscious among us.

Is there such a thing as fair trade minerals? I doubt it.

Fairphone's latest mobile (my wife has had two previous iterations) is Fairtrade Gold certified and they've always made a big thing about their ethical supply chains, even down to the rare earth minerals, etc. I appreciate the batteries (and other gubbins) in a phone and a car are rather different in terms of scale, but it seems mining can be (at the very least) fairer and less damaging than it is now.