james meets a community divided by lithium mining. this one patch in the middle, that's the only player not clean, now and that's really scary. and alastair test drives the brain scanning tech that may improve the performance of racing drivers. we have seen something just about average, - just above average. i've got a very average brain! over half of the uk's transport emissions come from cars, so to help reach climate targets, the government had banned the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 — although that has now been pushed back to 2035. even with a few extra years added, this is still a huge change for car owners and makers. some manufacturers embraced electric early but bentley was not one of them, so how are things going now at its hq? luxury leather interiors and all the wooden dashboard and trim from the exact same tree to make sure it matches. it takes around 130 hours to craft one of these cars. although bentleys are generally bought for their owners to drive themselves around, for anyone that has a chauffeur, this one also has screens in the back. when you think bentley, well, you are probably more likely to think about this kind of finery than you are where the nearest electric charger is — well, that and the price tag. they start at 169,000 for the most basic. so, is it worth it? it gives you 207 miles an hour and that kind of arrival presence. when you pull up in front of the best hotel, you get the best parking place. no posh hotel — i'm at the bentley factory to meet my tour guide for the day. 0n the right—hand side, you have the suv line, consisting of 44 process stations along the way. it's weird being underneath a car. not being a mechanic, i'm not used to it. it's only 2.5 tons. this production alone produces 114 cars a week after each vehicle spends under 13 minutes at each bay. it undergoes 70 different production processes. there are 64 basic colours to choose from and if any reason you don't like any of them, well, you can have one custom—made — and rumour has it a lady once came in asking for her car to be made the same colour as her nail varnish. now for the whole section dedicated to the leather interior. the colours but also the smell, it really smells of leather in here. it's beautiful, isn't it? is there some sort of sustainable element here? all of the hides are byproducts of the meat industry. this is where we bring the hide in over here. we lay it down on this bed. we have a camera system that scans it and then, we automatically map out the most effective way for the panels to cut them all out perfectly. and then, there is the sewing room, rows of giant sewing machines creating more options than most of us could probably even think up. mesmerising to watch. you can even have your name embroidered on the seat if you wanted. we talk so much on this programme about automation but what has really struck me here today is how many of the processes feel handcrafted. except there is one key part of the car that is about to leap into the 21st century. bentley is planning to replace its famed 12—cylinder engine with an electric motor across its range by 2030. it's investing £2.5 billion to achieve it, but is it ready? extremely ready. 100% by 2030, fully carbon neutral. i did not get to see bentley's new electric car, not even a prototype. everything about the car is really hush—hush, including the price. what price will this start at? we are not giving the prices yet but there will be a whole range of cars, five models, if you take our current position. we top out about 300 for the base cars, it will be about 5—10%. and the majority of your customers overseas, where they don't have the same rules coming in for electric vehicles? yes, 80% of our revenue comes from overseas and most of the cities where we operate, including in europe, have restrictions if not banned. so even though every country has not banned them, many cities are restricting use. because our cars are used every day, customers know it's advantageous to drive an electric car. what does the boss of a major car manufacturer make of the uk government's surprise announcement to delay the ban on electric vehicles by five more years? we are still reflecting on it. if we knew it was 2035, maybe we would have changed some of the products between now and then because it is 12 years before they are banned instead of six years before they are banned. you will still be producing cars from other countries that are petrol? absolutely. by 2030, we are fully and only electric. notjust that, bentley has asked all its supplies to use only renewable energy by 2030, it also plans to switch to green steel and aluminium and fully recyclable plastics. a reminder that electric cars being clean is notjust about their emissions, but also the manufacturing processes. and the production of evs has been a subject of some debate over recent months. with many countries setting green targets to move from petrol to electric, this could ironically see a dramatic increase in mining — that's because electric batteries require a key metal, lithium. james clayton has been to nevada in the us to investigate how the extraction of this element has created a moral quandary for some environmentalists. this is people who are escaping the us cavalry attacks from this area, past the sentinel rock here, and the us cavalry chased the people into this area right here where the mine is being dug up at the and they were massacred, so it's a tragedy. it should be a historical site. that should stop the mining altogether. unfortunately, the corporations did not hear that. nevada has only been a state for a 160 years. it has been inhabited by the relatives of these people long before. they travel here every year to remember their ancestors that they say they were murdered at this spot. this year, the tone is even more sombre. in the distance, the rumble of heavy machinery. beneath the sagebrush here could be one of the biggest lithium deposits in the world. this is thacker pass and in march, work began to get it out of the ground. this mine is different. many of its supporters claim to be environmentalists and say, the mine could play at least some role in tackling climate change. global leaders across the world have committed to electric vehicles. that's why today i'm signing an executive order setting out a target of 50% of all passenger vehicles sold by 2030 will be electric. we are working hard to make the uk a world leader. yet if both countries want to make electric batteries, they currently have to import lithium. president biden is hoping that this can help the us shore up its own supply. we have the mining rights that go almost to the oregon border. tim crowley has been a mining advocate in nevada for most of his life, battling environmentalists for years. he is now at lithium america's developing the site. are you an environmentalist? of course. i'm an outdoorsman. i live on this planetjust like everybody else. i love it. i guess there will be people who say someone who has been pro mining for a long time, calling themselves an environmentalist, that's incongruous. mining plays an essential role in transitioning into a better, greener environment. the mining industry is not mining minerals for the sake of mining minerals, they are doing it because demand has asked for those things. nobody produces any product if there is no demand for it. the demand is high for these things and it's exceptionally high for lithium, for a very good reason. work on this mine began in march after years of legal battles. when complete, the lithium will go to general motors to make batteries, but many environmentalists simply don't buy that this mine will help save the planet. john karr heads up the local environment agency. these minerals are used for our technology transmission away from fossil fuels, so they are classified as green. but a mining operation is, in fact, very damaging to the environment, and we have to be very careful about how we permit these things. in terms of climate change, you would accept there is a huge challenge to humanity from that? enormous, we are in a hotspot, a difficult place. one thing i'm really concerned about is we're losing and to do other things to address climate change. we can reduce demand for minerals byjust changing habits — which we can do quickly, to be honest. most of the world's minerals reside in countries that were formally colonised, and that led to a new term, green colonialism. this new push to get these rare earth minerals through resource extraction projects, whether that is pipelines or mining, but you have to say it's not up to you to decide what to do with this land, this is their land, their ancestral land, and they don't want this to happen, so we have to listen to the people. not all environmentalists agree. john hadder used to have a partner in crime at gray basin research watch, but last year he resigned from the board after coming out in support of the mine. the entire environmental community is split on this thing. miller has retired from the university of nevada but has done research supported by a grant from lithium americas. he says that's got nothing to do with his position on the mine. climate change is so important and lithium is so important for electrifying the transportation industry, of which is about 30% of climate change, that is the transportation industry, the environmentalists say we should drive less, not use computers, not use phones, anything that requires us to pull these metals up. nobody is doing it now, nobody will do that, and so the answer is better transportation systems, more efficient vehicles. 0pponents to this mine think this isjust the beginning, that this whole area will become one massive mine district, and when you ask lithium americas, it's pretty clear that's exactly what they want. i know there are concerns that this whole area — which is stunningly beautiful — might end up becoming a mining district. we think we can mine right here for many decades, even beyond today. do you want this area to be a mining district? do you want multiple mines here? there has to more. if the united states is going to be self—sufficient, there has to be more development. we are looking for more, more in this immediate area but we are also looking elsewhere throughout north america. the people at this protest are already looking at how they can strategise to protest against other mines planned in the area. there are actually five companies exploring, five different transnational companies, basically. there's one patch in the middle which is the only place not claimed right now, and that's really scary because that means there is more land being looked at for mining than there is being left alone. but it very much looks like this isjust the beginning. mining in the name of saving the planet. that was james and now it's time for a look at this week's news. the trial of stx founder sam bankman—fried has begun in the us, the cryptocurrency billionaire accused of fraud following the collapse of his huge crypto exchange last year. his trial is expected to last up to six weeks. the us government has issued its first ever fine for letting space junk orbit the earth. it fired dish network $150,000 for not moving their satellite further away from others in use. the more satellites up there, the more risk there is a collision and these are moving at several kilometres per second, so if any of the satellites crash into each other, it's a very powerful collision. the us watchdog has recalled over 300,000 0newheel electric skateboards. the consumer product safety commission warning crashes could cause serious injury after four people died while riding them in the us. future motion, which makes them, says the recall applies to all customers, not just those in the us. and google has unveiled its latest pixel smartphones and android updates at its annual product showcase. the pixel 8 and pixel 8 pro handsets are powered by google�*s new tensor g3 chip that boosts its ai tools, like detecting and filtering spam calls. now, while bentley is onlyjust entering the ev market, other established car manufacturers have been producing electric for years. but one make that you may never have heard of has been topping the chinese electric market, even beating tesla there. but who is it? it's called byd and it now produces one of the top—selling evs in the world. monica miller went for a ride in singapore to find out what all the hype�*s about. if you really want to know how a car performs, ask a taxi driver. johnson has been behind the wheel for the evolution of cars, from diesel fuelled to hybrid. now, electric. he's been driving a byd e6 for about a year now. you don't have a combustion engine, so it is very quiet — like you can see now, it's very quiet. and the drive is very smooth. johnson leases his vehicle from a transit company called comfortdelgro. its managing director says the byd feature that won him over was the battery life under cool and hot conditions. we are looking for a vehicle that has got a range of more than 500 kilometres with a single charge, and that is something that is, one, front and centre in our consideration. the other main consideration is cost. byd, which stands for build your dreams, at the moment is hard to beat. its vertically integrated supply chain keeps prices down, especially when it comes to the cost of batteries, the most expensive part of an ev. byd was a battery company long before it was a car company. they made batteries that went into consumer electronics products and cellphones in particular. so, their dream was to become a car company. mr russo is an auto analyst in shanghai. he says tesla is the pioneer of the ev category. tesla opened the gigafactory here in shanghai in 2020, launched the model 3. the rise of evs — it's not coincidental that tesla triggered the retail consumer interest in new energy vehicles, and that's benefiting notjust tesla but all the chinese companies that followed them. this electric car maker is tesla's top competition in china and it's tapping into growing markets, like here in southeast asia. but byd has to work hard to keep that top post. it faces stiff competition from domestic ev makers that are close in its rear—view mirror. rivals like nio and xpeng are also revving up their production in overseas markets. but in some places like singapore, the charging infrastructure is playing catch—up with demand. comfortdelgro says that a limited number of fast charging stations has been a concern for some drivers, which is why evs make up a small fraction of their fleet. if you want them to actually park their vehicle for hours and they're waiting for the recharge, it's not practical because for them, every hour actually is money. for taxi drivers likejohnson, it's an attractive solution, especially as the rising cost of living has caused bumps in the road. it's notjust the cars that we drive that are going green — even motorsport is trying to do its bit. formula e is the electric equivalent of formula 1 and alasdair keane has been to le mans in france to meet the nissan team to see how they're notjust pushing batteries to their limit but they're also tracking their brains to try and improve performance. this is sport pushing innovation in electric vehicles to the limit. the best championship in the world, i would call it, and the racing makes it extremely exciting because you have a lot of energy management because, of course, you start the race with the battery you have. you just don't make it to the end — you need to recharge over 40% of your battery to reach the end of the race. that makes the racing extremely exciting because, you know, you have to manage your energy, at the same time try to keep position or fight for position so, honestly, the championship and the level of drivers is extremely high and the room of mistakes, it's extremely slim. but with 17 races in cities all over the world, racing fast takes its toll on the drivers. thejet lag is difficult because you go from mexico to saudi arabia to india and then, cape town. you're constantly travelling. now, we go to tokyo. it's a lot ofjet lag also. you are very tired after the races, that's for sure. with overcoming sleep deprivation and improving reaction times in mind, nissan have embarked on a two—year research project delving deep into their drivers�* brains. we isolated two main areas. one is clarity, so how much the brain is about to give focus under these stressing events and distractions, and the other one is speed, the decision—making process. clarity relates to how well the drivers perform under pressure and speed is how fast they can process information and, ultimately, make split second decisions. so, you can actually map, in a way, how your brain is strong or weak in these two areas and you can have a protocol that can improve the brain on these two specific skills. the first step of this programme has been regularly scanning drivers�* and other participants�* brains to build a map of how different people work in clarity and speed. calming electronic music plays. 0k. so what, if anything, has this told you about my brain? we�*ve seen something just above average — just above average. i�*ve got a very average brain! chuckles. in terms of speed. and a driver would have a faster brain? as it were. it depends on the person. there are drivers who have a lot faster — a lot faster brains. but we also see drivers who have just above average. but a very clear — a very clear brain overall. once the scanning has built up a map of an individual, a bespoke training programme is created. that involves a second bit of tech and aims to increase the brain�*s ability to develop new skills. basically, you put the brain in a very trainable state. we do brain stimulation, so we are passing some very weak current through the surface of the brain. sometimes, we use magnetic stimulation. this is a really easy equipment to use. i use it basically two or three times per week and it's just 30 minutes of doing nothing and relaxing and the machine is basically doing the job on its own. before training, you use a device like that and after training, you would use it again and you will see highly accelerated rate of skill acquisition, the specific skill you want to improve on. what do you think is the benefits of doing this kind of training? i've seen the ability to switch on and off my mind quicker and i've noticed quite a clear improvement on my sleep, which is also quite a good thing for athletes. but there is a balance to be struck here between the tech you can put in place around sports stars and just letting them perform. when you first heard about this brain performance programme, what was your reaction? at the beginning when they talked about it, i was like, "hmm, not a fan of those kind of things" because i like to be myself and just get on with it. but slowly, you know, i pushed myself, of course, to try it out and i did feel some little differences, especially on the sleeping side of things. with season ten around the corner, the team are now committed to embedding this into their training programme. it will still only count for a fraction of driver development but in a sport where teams are striving to push innovation, every little bit could help. that�*s it from bentley. thanks for watching. we�*ll be back next week. bye— bye. hello. rarely do we see a day of weather contrasts quite as stark as those we experienced during saturday. across many parts of scotland we had huge amounts of rain, flooding and disruption. we had this met office amber warning in force. this expiring through the first part of sunday morning but this new warning stretching from aberdeenshire up towards inverness, this warning is in force until 2pm on sunday with further flooding and disruption likely. this is the rain we had on saturday. it was relentless. well over 100 millimetres of rain in places and some spots in the north of scotland only got to 7—8 degrees. compare that with 25 in southeast england, those huge contrasts. that was the warmest 0ctober day we�*ve seen in five years. into sunday, this frontal system still plaguing parts of scotland with some outbreaks of rain. the focus for the heaviest rain does shift a little further northwards and eastwards. still though some rain through the central belt, could cause further problems, southern scotland looking drier with a little bit of sunshine. patchy cloud and sunny spells for northern ireland. quite murky for some western coasts of england and wales and a bit more cloud for eastern coasts too, but we should, broadly speaking, see some spells of sunshine on what will be another very warm day for the time of year — 25, 26 degrees, not as cold across the north of scotland. heading through sunday night, we will still see some bits and pieces of rain across scotland, maybe fringing into northern ireland, but generally it will turn a bit drier, quite windy in the far north, very mild as we start monday morning with some areas of low cloud, mist and fog, particularly for western coasts and some of that could linger as we go through the day. scotland certainly drier than it has been, although this little line of rain could just plague the southwest of scotland from time to time. temperatures north to south — 13 in stornoway, still 2a in london. moving deeper into the week, we will see something of a change, that warmth is set to be swept away. a frontal system pushing its way south and east through the middle of the week, heavy rain with that, and behind it something cooler, something a bit more like we would expect at this time of year. so a mainly dry, warm start to the week but things will change from midweek onwards. good morning. welcome to breakfast with ben thompson and sarah campbell. 0ur headlines today — israel retaliates: gaza is hit by air strikes overnight as the conflict escalates with the israeli prime minister saying the country has entered a "long and difficult war". more than 500 people from both sides are dead and the israeli military says dozens of civilians and soldiers are being held hostage by palestinian militant group hamas. also today, heavy rainfall and flooding is causing major disruption in the highlands and north—eastern scotland. we�*ll find out how xl bully dog owners are training their pets ahead of new rules following a ban on the breed. in sport, ireland blow scotland away at the rugby world cup. the world number one side now face new zealand in the quarterfinals as the scots head home. landslips and travel disruption continue to be a concern through scotland today with a met office amber warning for some lasting until this afternoon. i have details on that and the sunny and warm weather across other parts of the uk. more about coming up on breakfast. it�*s sunday the eighth of october. our main story: some palestinian gunmen remain at large in israel this morning following yesterday�*s invasion, which has prompted a series of retaliatory air strikes on gaza.