Read the full article: Dreams of European Battery Independence From China In Jeopardy: Analysts
‘National Security Issue’
Responsible Battery Coalition Executive Director Steve Christensen told The Epoch Times that while the battery business is a tough one to be in, the wider issue has more to do with what China is doing “to restrict access to the materials than it has to do with any single company or groups of companies that might fail.”
EV battery production worldwide draws heavily on lithium-ion, cobalt, and other substances whose mining, processing, and distribution are largely the domain of Chinese firms.
But he said that to create a domestic production, “you’re looking at anywhere from five to 15 years, sometimes 20 years, until that mine starts purchasing an industrial level of material.”
But even if that still happens, the intellectual property needed for processing remains almost entirely in Chinese hands.
He said that if he were advising the EU, he would tell the bloc to designate all materials for all batteries critical “because of how critical batteries are, and we see it as a national security issue.”
Christensen said China has restricted exports of battery materials to the West because it doesn’t want other countries to manufacture them; it wants to sell the finished products instead.
He also warned that one way China could head off a domestic supply chain would be to dump low-quality materials into the market at a very low cost, to change the economics of the marketplace, and to flood the market and wipe out competitors.
