The war in Ukraine has spurred a reckoning about the West’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels, but resources vital to electrification could face disruption as well. Namely, nickel—a metal most electric vehicle manufacturers rely on for their lithium-ion batteries.

Zoom in: About 20% of the world’s class 1 (or high-purity) nickel today comes from the Russian mining company Norilsk Nickel, also known as Nornickel. While commodities in Russia haven’t specifically been targeted by sanctions so far, nickel prices are skyrocketing to unprecedented levels amid uncertainty.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, three-month nickel prices on the London Metal Exchange soared from less than $25,000 to more than $100,000 per ton for a brief period on Tuesday—a record high and the largest-ever spike on the LME, according to Bloomberg.

• While yesterday’s massive jump was driven mostly by a short squeeze, prices were already climbing before then due to anxiety over possibly losing Norilsk’s supply.
• The LME suspended trading in the nickel market as it opened in London on Tuesday.

“Prices will inevitably correct when LME trading returns, however I think we are now in for a sustained period of higher pricing which will drive up [battery] cell costs,” Greg Miller, an analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, told Emerging Tech Brew.

This price increase is adding to EV industry concerns about automakers’ lack of control over battery supply chains and the potential for more expensive raw materials to lead to higher battery costs, after steady declines over the last decade.

Big picture: This surge in the cost of nickel also comes at a time when automakers are already facing historic highs in lithium prices as well as spikes in cobalt and aluminum prices. The soaring cost of materials could cause battery cells to become more expensive year over year for the first time.

Still, rising oil costs have drivers feeling the impact of the war at the gas pump as well, arguably bolstering the case for electrification and less dependence on fossil fuels from Russia.

“Is this going to accelerate a move toward electric vehicles and clean energy? Or, if you’ve got such a big inflationary impact, are consumers going to feel poorer, are they going to be less likely to spend on EVs? That’s the big question,” Henry Sanderson, executive editor at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, told us.

Read more about how the sky-high nickel price will impact EVs.—GD

Mobileye, Intel’s autonomous-vehicle unit, is officially going public…eventually.

The company, which Intel acquired for ~$15 billion in 2017, confidentially filed its S-1, Intel announced on Monday. Intel initially announced its intentions to take the unit public in December, and it expects to retain majority ownership post-IPO.

Why it matters: Mobileye is a rare autonomous-vehicle company with an already promising business model, generating not only revenue but that ever-elusive financial metric: profit.

• In 2021, Mobileye's operating income was $460 million, and it made just under $1.4 billion in revenue. Its 2020 operating income was ~$240 million, and it was also in the green the previous two years.
• For comparison, Aurora, an autonomous-vehicle company that SPAC’d in November, had revenue of $82.5 million in 2021, but net losses of $755 million.

Mobileye’s mojo: Mobileye’s business success comes in part because it isn’t waiting to perfect L4 or L5 autonomy before monetizing its tech. The company sells advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), which enable things like smart braking or object detection, to automakers like VW, Nissan, and BMW.

• Once upon a time, it even supplied ADAS tech to Tesla.

Looking ahead…The Wall Street Journal reported in December that the company could fetch up to a $50 billion valuation, and Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said at the time that the company would use some of the cash from the transaction to fund the buildout of semiconductor plants.

Click here to read the full story.—DM

Here’s a question courtesy of the rapid advancement of 21st-century technology: What do factory workers at Apple production plants in China, middle managers in the US participating in corporate wellness programs, and warehouse workers potentially have in common?

Sure, they’re all working for pay, but they could reportedly also be providing their employers with troves of data related to their personal health, in addition to other sensitive information, such as scans of their fingerprints.

• According to market research firm the IMARC group, the global biometrics market reached a $27.97 billion dollar valuation in 2021, and is expected to reach nearly $75 billion by 2027.

Central to that gargantuan monetary figure are the eyeballs, heartbeats, and physical movements of people across the world, and, increasingly, employees who are clocking into work with their fingerprints or opening company devices with scans of their faces. The World Bank defines biometric data as “automatic recognition of individuals based on their biological or behavioral characteristics.”

Liz Brown, an associate professor of law and taxation at Bentley University, told HR Brew that she believes the increasing reliance on these tools in the workplace could be a cause of concern for employees “because companies’ use of this data is not transparent.”

• Biometric monitoring in the workplace “started with manufacturing and warehouse workers, but the range of biometric monitoring is expanding to cover all kinds of workers,” Brown said.
• “It’s a way of gathering information about workers who largely don’t have well-recognized privacy rights.”

Zoom out: Compared with US consumers—who still have fewer legal protections against a variety of data collection practices compared to citizens of the European Union, workers have even fewer rights when collection of biometric data slides into misuse, said Brown.

Read the full story, originally published in HR Brew.—SB

Stat: China plans to build 450 gigawatts of solar and wind power capacity in desert regions, including the Gobi. Currently, there is just under 1,500 GW of wind and solar capacity around the world.

Quote: “I could be talking to you from prison right now trying to explain my innocence…I just don’t want that to happen to anybody else.”—Nijeer Parks, a Black man who was wrongfully arrested and accused of a crime he didn’t commit after being misidentified by facial-recognition technology

Read: What’s the difference between carbon capture and carbon removal?

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Look, by now you’re likely all directionally aware of what we’re about to tell you, but let us color in the specifics: 2021 was the biggest-ever year for AI and ML venture funding, with startups in the space raising $115 billion, per Pitchbook—nearly double the ~$61 billion raised in 2020.

• Hospital administration, fleet management, and fraud prevention were three of the AI use cases that saw the fastest growth last year.

That said…Last year was historic for venture funding overall, so while this growth is impressive, it is not exactly shocking. In fact, Pitchbook wrote that last year, AI and ML “demonstrated weakness in VC funding relative to technology overall.”

Have you ever felt in over your head at work? Like any day your boss will find out you Google 95% of the things you’re supposed to know? Well, so has everyone—even the people you look up to the most.

In order to show that nobody has it all figured out, Morning Brew launched a new podcast, Imposters, where the Brew’s executive chairman, Alex Lieberman, sits down with the most respected names in business, sports, and entertainment to talk about how they overcame their personal challenges.

Check out Imposters here.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• A primer on carbon capture tech, which is netting billions in investment
• Ithaca wants to decarbonize all of its buildings by 2030—here’s how it will work
• A small-scale satellite-launching contest shows just how accessible space has become