american administration so talking about about political security but a split the these are the priorities for palestine they should go in order that political security prosperity without political will you can hardly have security on the ground not bruce but at the under occupation good to talk to so many thanks indeed for being with us thank you. diesel was supposed to be the future but the german car industry has paid and continues to count the cost of promoting the fuel after regulators caught some of the industry cheating on emissions tests now it's spending billions to go electric but the cost could be tens of thousands of job losses the german also industry employs 1800000 people directly and indirectly livelihoods are threatened because electric cars don't need complicated combustion engines leading to the loss of more than 100000 jobs by 2035 for the economy the german car industry is

a big bringing in $500000000000.00 annually to keep its global leadership b.m.w. dima and v.w. will spend $45000000000.00 on electric vehicle technology over the next 3 years for its part says its last fossil fuel based car will be released in 2026 but environmentalists say that's too little too late they want all manufacturers to phase out polluting engines by 2028 so how realistic is this now to serious dominic casey has been to a car plant in eastern germany to find out. this is the production line of the folks going to plant in sickle whether robotic and human workforce combine to assemble more than $300000.00 vehicles every year the decades virtually all the people's cars produced here have been powered by petrol engines but not for much longer now electric is the buzzword but we are convinced that not just german

drivers but also european ones are ready for this and we are ready to roll out these cars to the whole world why because an electric car is not a compromise they have everything that a car needs maybe even a little more they can be more dynamic with better driving characteristics you get a good sense of the differences between the vehicles when you look inside their shasta stripped down as they are here this is the conventionally powered gulf look at the central panel which is clearly big to contain is that and that sort of thing those sorts of controls but kind of cross to what we have here the ideological card no major central panel because batteries will be going where previously the sorts of machinery that were in the gulf were installed this drive is part of a commitment from v.w. to phase out all fossil fuel powered cars by 2040 leading environmental campaigners are demanding far more radical results holding onto the status quo is like holding

on the sand on the beach. time will slip between your hands and fingers in the past and you will be left with absolutely nothing but the best in your hands this sort of sentiment has fueled a surge in popularity for the green party across the continent with the movement reaching clear success in may's european elections in many people's minds are problems like these in stuttgart one of the most polluted cities in germany where levels of exhaust emissions regularly exceed safety elements and older diesel engines are already banned we are making very clear if you really want to make progress here if you really want to make sure that the cities are cleaning up without doing any circulation ban because that's what the conservatives hate well maybe then we have to clean up the cars and and we need to put up for policies in place for cleaning up the chorus that's the debate we're having and we're hoping we can push it further which helps explain why the carmakers are embracing the

electric revolution and why for v.w. fossil fuel powered cars will soon reach the end of the line dominic cain al-jazeera. well while german comic has are getting ready to spend billions on electric cars one nation has stolen a march in the field china's technology is considered to be miles ahead of its rivals are economics that is a spoke to alexander close the executive vice president of chinese electric car maker a ways he began by asking if its technology advantage was one reason for its plans to expand overseas starting in germany we think we have a very good foundation here in china where you actually have a huge electrical vehicle market already and we want to export that to other places where we think the development hasn't been as fast as it has been in china that's why we think we have a certain advantage going to these places namely for us places to go to receive

them and german companies that is start spending 45000000000 on electric cars and you have tesla as another competitor are you well capitalized to be able to deal with that kind of competition we think what we'll do we offer a vehicle will offer vehicle plus services around that vehicle in the european market and we will capitalize to do that what others have to spend to actually convert all of the. existing assets into electrical vehicles and do for electrical codes it's something completely different we think we've very well equipped to go into the european market and as we all starting at the same time we think we have actually a very good chance of not market and why do you think your pains will be interested in buying your cause 1st of all i have to say we won't sell these cars to europeans we just least we want to make it as easy as possible for anybody who wants to go in

the battery electric vehicle and we think a lot of people do want to go into battery electric vehicles we want to make it very easy for them to get into this vehicle so we will only leads them to. no question about versatile value no question about warranty no question about maintenance and so on will make it very easy for everybody to get into these cars we know that there is a lot of people who want to drive b. and they just can't do so because all they get in the market at present is very expensive it's going to be a risk because nobody knows what the research you value ability in a few years nobody knows what the battery will too and so on we want to take all of that off and we think we have an offering that a lot of people will interested in but you've got companies like b y d is a chinese company india which have sought international expansion but haven't made the transition yes so where do you think you can improve on that everybody else has talked about thought about it and so on we'll just going to do it we think we have

a product that is in terms of quality ready for the european market we think also that we offer everything that the european customers would want to have and that's why we're just going to jump over the over to europe we think it's also the right time may be a year ago 2 years ago it was in the right time but now it's the right time there's a lot of people literally that are waiting for a car that they can afford where they will have no risk to get into a better electric vehicle and where they can just test this and we offer them that vehicle do you think electric cars are the future in specially when there is concern about range eggs lightly and china itself is considering hydrogen technology too for long distances in particular 1st of all we think that most of the customers in the market today will actually not need a car for a very long distance there is this discussion about

a range scientists but we think it's exaggerated we still offer a car with a very long range and. to our knowledge people will find out. in a few years that and maybe that range is even too much for them so they could actually do with a smaller range we still offer it today obviously we don't want to offer something for everybody in the market right now we just offering one certain vehicle for a certain purpose and we think that we have to right solution for that what will be the solution for long range travelling for somebody who has to travel a long range every day is still in the open we doing our own research in that area and there is some some let's say some technologies which might be the right technologies for the future but nobody knows that and we're all still developing

for that time before that and also for a lot of the short range travel it's going to be battery electric vehicles we have very convinced about that sales of cars are slowing in china and we also have the threat of a longer trade war with the united states just tell us what your feelings are as to where the industry is going in china itself yes sales have been slowing in china but they have been slowing in certain segments and certain manufacturers stuff in other manufacturers which still successful we are a startup we have a plant with a certain capacity which way we want to fill in we think we can fill that capacity because it's only one small part of the market so whilst the market has been slowing around us and we don't think that's going to impact our expansion in the future particularly as we also going abroad as to the potential trade war between china and the u.s. as we expanding in europe 1st it's not going to impact us for now we'll proceed

also thinking about the u.s. market but that might be at a later stage and excludes the executive vice president of a ways talking that while business as a bit early. and i want to carry on some of the thoughts from that interview with our next guest joining us from london simon morse the managing director of benchmark mineral intelligence simon you are the leading provider of pricing data for lithium key ingredients of electric battery technology but there are concerns that if the world was to stop producing electric cars at the current rate of production we could use up the world's resources within 17 to 40 years what's missing from that analysis quite a bit really mean lithium isn't rare the question is getting out the ground in economic quantities and at the moment the lithium industry has gone through a surge in exploration and new development but right now there's not not as much investment going into the lithium industry to go beyond 2025 so the numbers you

quoted really a little maybe minerals in the ground it isn't taken to it into account production that's coming on stream and new exploration is going to happen but the takeaway point is let him isn't geologically rare but the challenge is getting it into the supply chain in economic quantities you talk about funding it's being held back isn't it because investors just don't know how to price this mineral at the moment they're looking to the likes of the london metals exchange to provide a tradeable contract just like copper of the like but a lot of players within the industry don't particularly like to trade it that way that's exactly right so lithium is traded in private contracts between buyer and seller and at benchmark we create an independent reference prize to enable that supply chain to trade with more clarity and more freedom never before but as lithium grows is going to be new ways to trade lithium contracts and one was the london metal exchange you have a number of other exchanges looking at it as well but lithium is

a speciality chemical ready it's going from the nature 300020 year industry into the mainstream to about a 1000000 tonnes in the mid 20 twenty's and with that will come different ways to trade this and when. expanding that quickly in a market lithium can't just rely on itself to expand anymore it's going to need x. turn or capital and the issue without external capital is investors are present too scared to put their money into it because they don't understand the fume is too risky it's too specialist or the evy story is the sun too good to be true and i think that's the main challenge at the moment it's more rare mineral and new. sources of lithium come on line is there a danger that there might be oversupply and that could impact negatively upon the price how long does it get once you've got the investment how long does it get these these mines up and running is a really good question because it takes anywhere between 8 and 10 years to build

a lithium my from scratch and to get it ramped up without any problems and that's the biggest challenge for lithium the investment has gone into the mid twenty's twenty's as i said but really the surge in electric vehicle production is coming after that point and there's a big question mark over where the money is going to come from for all these future lithium mines but as i said the exploration people know these tier one lithium sources now they understand the to 2 sources the question is if the money is going to be committed and at the moment it's not coming from the capital markets it's coming from the industry itself right for the moment chinese entities control nearly half of global lithium production and 60 percent of electric battery production capacity does that become a security concern for other nations it has to especially the us i mean when you look for certain parts of the supply chain should i should add so when you look at the lithium structure you've got 6 big producers 2 of which are chinese 2 of which are actually american producers money in south america and the question really

isn't on the structure of the lithium industry that kind of that does operate in a sensible normal market driven way it's actually where the battery capacity is being built out so we've we collect this data also benchmark and we've got 1.9 terawatt hours of battery capacity by 2029 it sounds a lot it means about 35000000 electric vehicles but where is that capacity being built out it's china 67 percent of this batch is in china how much as in the u.s. it's about 8 percent the question is if you take tesla and their huge gigafactory out the equation the number is 3 percent. so the u.s. really should be concerned about these supply chains and is playing catch up with china some and really good to talk to you on cutting across many thanks indeed for being with us simon morse managing director at benchmark mineral intelligence that show for this week if you'd like to comment on anything that you've seen you can tweet me i'm at a finnigan on twitter please use the hash tag a j c t c when you do or you could

drop us a line count in the cost of al-jazeera dot net is our e-mail address as always there's plenty more for you online at al-jazeera dot com slash c.t.c. that takes you straight to our page and there you'll find individual reports links even entire episodes for you to catch up on but that's it for this edition of counting the cost i'm adrian finnegan from the whole team here in doha thanks for being with us the news on al-jazeera is next. let me take itto thanks like no please son. while the rain. continues strong against solstice on most skilled. nations will come to traffic in stadiums that are dropped in class.

discover our newest destination defeat the women's world cup france 29 t. . they wanted 43000000000 pounds worth of weaponry that was 6000000000 in commission. there is no hope of any more because there's always a small cobbles people really really good business. in assonance we in the united states have privatized the ultimate public function more shadow on al-jazeera. and look forward to saying hello to him if if that all finally works out there just is always a chance that it might not but it sounds like the teams would like to have that work out will they all won't they donald trump talks of his trip to the

demilitarized zone between north and south korea but will kim jong un be there to greet. hello i'm down in jordan this is al jazeera from doha also coming up the g. 20 summit wraps up in japan where the u.s. and china but it's a real them play talks but members fail to reach a consensus on climate change. washington reportedly wants to know how american made antitank weapons got into the hands of fighters loyal to the libyan the war after. and why a british rappers groundbreaking appearance at one of the world's biggest music festivals has cast a spotlight on the u.k.'s fractured political landscape. well talks of a possible meeting between donald trump and kim jong un have dominated

a summit between the u.s. and south korean presidents speaking in seoul president trump said north korean officials want to take up his offer to meet at the demilitarized zone later on sunday noon jane who would accompany the u.s. president to the border as back to the potential meeting saying it would be historic well in a moment we'll be live with our diplomatic editor james bays and that's near the d.m.z. but 1st let's go to rob mcbride in seoul where trump and moon jane will hold a joint press conference a little bit later rob so we have this tantalizing prospect of trouble briefly meeting the north korean leader at the d.m.z. clearly there there has been work to make this happen and it'll be pretty historic . yeah absolutely daryn it's the big question here is just how unexpected this has all been and how spontaneous or indeed whether there's been an awful lot of work in advance to make this happen and this has been planned for some time we really don't know but there has been increasing speculation that yes we are

likely to see an historic event this sunday afternoon on the korean peninsula speculation has been mounting in the local media here with reports of south korean and u.s. officials meeting overnight with their current north korean counterparts on the d.m.z. the speculation has been fueled of course by both moon j.n. and donald trump themselves they have been beaten for ready a summit at the blue house a working lunch we are now waiting for a press conference after that as you mentioned they're moving jay and has talked about how historic this is it all the more historic of course the that it may well be a 3 way deal that we will have the president of south korea the leader of north korea and the president of the united states all meeting and to give you an idea of what we're seeing here normally. the united states the security people there on the security people of south korea never discussed the visits of their presidents to

the demilitarized zone for security reasons so it gives you a sense of the that we are living through some unprecedented moments here and of course donald trump speaking just ahead of the summit meeting with the south koreans as always seeming to tease this out seeming to confirm that it is going to take place but keeping us guessing and we may well be kept guessing right up until the maid act to start taking those historic steps towards the line separate between the blue huts of pam and john. i've been told that. i would like to meet and there looks like they're in final stages of working out in just a very quick meeting because i'll be at the d.m.z. anywhere the border of the d.m.z. and i look forward to saying hello to him if if there are finally works. and rob just talk us through south korea's role in kick starting the stalled talks between the u.s. and north korea i mean what does president moon see as his role in going forward

that's right down that will very much have been the talking points on the agenda for this extended summit meeting that they've been having it's worth reminding our men amongst all this giddiness yesterday was this is unprecedented is history making but it's worth remembering just where those stalled talks are up to after the failure of hanoi from the north korean position they are still insisting that the americans have got to come back with something new before they'll return to the negotiating team table there are the hawks in the u.s. side who are still insisting there has to be denuclearized nation and pointed out with some justification that and up until this point north korea has a not dismantled or boxed up a single part of its nuclear arsenal so they are still miles apart and yet as you mentioned there south korea will be hoping that maybe this top down approach that they are once more resorting to will find some way of producing something

meaningful or right or wrong bride there in the south korean capital rob thanks for that let's cross over now to our diplomatic editor james bays who is live for us and pleasure to south korea that's near the demilitarized zone james that looks like this meeting between trump and kim will happen now at the d.m.z. just talk us through what's going on where you are now. well i think it looks like it's going to happen simply because of the comments that we've had from president trump and president moon they are being very optimistic about this and i think they wouldn't be so positive if they didn't think that the meeting was on but of course it's a difficult thing to organize and the south sorry the north koreans could be somewhat unpredictable so nothing i think can be confirmed and till we see that meeting which is still i think a possibility but now a strong possibility we'll find out more in just a few moments because as as you've seen we've already heard from both the south

korean president and president trump but in fact they're going to speak to the press again shortly and will update us further on what is going to happen at this meeting at the d.m.z. which we expect to happen if they stay according to plan and it's perhaps looked a few minutes off the official white house schedule in about an hour's time from now i think the. form of this i think is if it does happen will be perhaps similar to when president moon met with kim last year we saw the 2 leaders come either side of the line at the d.m.z. and then shake hands across the divide and then we saw kim enter south korea taking steps into south korea and and then he guided moon back into the north and i think that's the sort of photo opportunity that the white house will be hoping for because they know that will have real resonance on both sides of the

korean peninsula and james if they do shake hands it will be the 3rd time both leaders will have met in just over a year or so how will this meeting reset relations between the u.s. and north korea because we have these stalled denuclearization talks which as robert wright was saying haven't got any way yes. well let's just deal with what might happen if it does 1st shaking of hands important particularly happening at a place that is still an active front line because there was no peace treaty signed at the end of the korean war 66 years ago just an armistice so that will be important if trump actually steps over the border it may seem like a little step but that will be very significant and historic because they'll be the 1st time in those 66 years that a sitting u.s. president has entered north korea without former presidents jimmy carter and bill clinton have gone to pyongyang with this with the 1st time a sitting u.s. president in charge of the u.s.

forces on the korean peninsula has actually entered the other side so that would be important to the very important 1 photo in terms of the actual process diplomats who i've spoken to including some pretty high level diplomats don't believe there's much of a process going on at this stage since hanoi and that's half the problem you have a relationship with 2 leaders who seem to get on quite well but to make that transfer into some sort of process to lead to some sort of deal you need the detailed work and nothing seems to be going on to a lower level what this perhaps can do is show that both sides are still invested in the process and actually start the detailed work behind the scenes as we now see the south korean president and president trump heading down the stairs of the blue house they're going to give us a few more details i think that yeah james we're still waiting we're still waiting now for that press conference in fact now that in fact president trump and the

south korean president jane walking down now to the podium let's just watch them coming down the steps there they're going to give this press conference after the bilateral talks which they had. the presidential palace a little bit earlier say u.s. president donald trump after the g. 20 summit coming up. south korea. meets with the south korean president and also this tantalizing prospect of this meeting with the north korean leader at the d.m.z. let's listen in to what he has had to say. tonight a trumpet we have to look at tonight don't you think it is just how we do it had a year and i just got a. bunch of young talents are you good about an 80 or do you doubt sincerity i just needa do that i know you're too young but trying to get old. can you. do about an 80.

or 100. $100.00 she was one you're so hung up on the u.s. and south korea having to focus on. the world's attention. for the 1st time in history. north korea and usa leaders. will be able to meet. the test would be the 1st step towards. peace. and the south korea and north korea will be. able to. talk about the peace in the future. what we really want. is

a permanent peace on the korean peninsula. mr trump will be going down history and we president who made. peace on the korean peninsula. and i'd like to keep my appreciation to mr trump and. north korean leader kim. is the practical and practical approach to peace. as far as. is concerned. the complete station on the korean peninsula and prominence peace. is very important in.