Good News & Bad News, page-12041

Simon Moores CEO of BMI, says "The global battery arms race has now become a supply chain race", and its becoming quite clear, that if the EU and US do not cooperate/engage with Chinese supply chain actors, it will be difficult for them to gain a foothold in the supply chain any time soon. They (EU and US) essentially exited upstream mining a few decades back, which today is the stumbling block for their supply chain, in that, throwing billions to build out downstream capacity (refining, cathode/anode production) without upstream feedstock is just plain crazy.

While China's domestic auto manufacturing is the largest globally, combined, the EU and US auto sectors is ~50% larger than China, thus a massive underlying problem. So, what do the EU and US do, in order to avoid loosing their auto manufacturing sectors to the middle kingdom?

Not going to pretty, and financially, OEM's are well placed to invest in upstream, but I'm not sure they should. OEM's can churn out their ICEV's with the comfort of knowing the refined petrol or diesel is there waiting for them, while the battery supply chain is a another thing, unrefined materials, dirty mines and all that jive.

I believe big O&G are much better placed to take the upstream lead, both mining and refining, leaving the OEM's to do their thing, but whoever is going to lead the EU and US, they need to move fast to protect their domestic auto sectors, and for the next few years, be nice to China.

If China is already struggling to meet battery supply chain demand, so how convenient it was for GS, to miss, not factor in the demand growth coming from the EU and US......