Toyota tries to pull the plug on rare earths

ETFdb reports that Toyota may find substitute for some of the rare earths it consumes:

Toyota is sinking vast sums into research and development of new technologies which seek to limit the needs for rare earth metals. This is especially important for Toyota, since the Japanese have had a long-standing rivalry with the Chinese who are rapidly developing a car industry of their own. Toyota would hate to fall prey in the future because of this scenario, and as a result is rapidly developing alternatives to the current system. Recently announced plans call for Toyota to completely phase-out rare earth metals from its increasingly popular alternative-power cars .