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> The skills built up by European carmakers over decades are simply not directly transferrable. Germany does have a giant, excellent chemistry industry. > Chi

> The skills built up by European carmakers over decades are simply not directly transferrable. Germany does have a giant, excellent chemistry industry. > China's interest in batteries is not a recent trend. It has been investing in their production for many, many years. It has been attempting to dominate not just the production of cells but also of the cathodes and anodes that go inside them - not to mention the chemicals used to make those electrodes. It has been firming up the entire supply chain - all the way down to the mines. And while you can find only so much lithium and cobalt in China, Chinese firms have been buying up mines in Africa and elsewhere for years. The fun thing is that the west saw it coming and didn't try particularly hard to forestall it. Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective.

RandomThoughts3 2y ago
But focusing only on manufacturing is missing half of the picture. China is using for batteries the same playbook they used for PVs. They are spending a lot of money to hire all the top researchers they can in the field. Truth is they are years ahead of most battery manufacturers in R&D.
MoreMoore 2y ago
Germany is IBM. Existing industries are too valuable and influential, and shifting something as entrenched as German auto industries is an expensive, difficult endeavour that isn't immediately as profitable as the existing business. At least maybe we'll get to stick around as business consultants and selling mainframes to a handful of companies convinced by "nobody was ever fired for buying German".
- formerly_proven 2y ago
  People like to say the US is a car-dependent country (because you can't go anywhere without a car). However, germany is the most car-dependent country (because it can't go anywhere without making cars).
amelius 2y ago
The world knows how to make good cars now. The EU has to move on to the next problem if it wants to stay ahead.
- Animats 2y ago
  > The world knows how to make good cars now. Companies can forget how. Stellantis (which owns Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Fiat, and some other forgettable car brands) forgot how. The CEO was fired on December 1st, 2024. His strategy had been to crank prices way up, add on post-sale service charges, and get the biggest bonus in automotive executive pay history (not counting Musk's current litigated bonus.) Sales went down. Way down. Chrysler now makes only minivans. Overpriced Jeeps are piling up in dealer lots. The "mild hybrid" power train, with 21 miles of electric mileage, is a dud. The brand image is in the tank. Nobody wears a Stellantis T-shirt. The US has 3 million unsold cars sitting on dealer lots. Some have been there for over a year. How many will still start?
  - BarbaPeru 2y ago
    Forgettable as Citroen and Peugeot, for example?
    - GuB-42 2y ago
      I think GP means forgettable in the US. Here is the brands from the Wikipedia article: - Abarth - Alfa Romeo - Chrysler - Citroën - Dodge - DS Automobiles - Fiat - Jeep - Lancia - Maserati - Opel - Peugeot - Ram Trucks - Vauxhall None of them I would call "forgettable". Most of these brands have been there for more than a century. The only ones more recent than that are Abarth, DS and Ram. DS and Ram refer to iconic vehicles by Citroën and Dodge respectively and lately turned into their own brands.
ghaff 2y ago
>Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Which worked so well for Japan that you had Nobel economic laureates promoting it. </s> I'm being a bit sarcastic of course but MITA was seen as such the future in Japan--until it wasn't.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  Industrial policy will bring you up to a point, and apparently, no further. Anyway, it was wildly successful in Japan, Germany, and the US. Up until the time it stopped working. It has been arguably less successful in China, but still good enough to create massive change.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    I don't really disagree. You need, sorry, effective capitalism and a legal structure underneath the policy but that doesn't replace entrepreneurship and broader cultural norms.
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      The problem is that industrial policy seems to be incompatible with effective capitalism and universal rule of law to some extent. It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why. But it never seems to be a positive thing after some point, instead, it seems to have very negative impacts on more developed countries.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why It's good at the initial stages and unproductive later on. The problem is that when you need to remove it is also when its recipients are most powerful.
        ghaff 2y ago
        There's probably reasonable disagreement on the extent of anti-trust enforcement etc. in developed economies. We may see a case study in the coming years.
Animats 2y ago
> Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Yes. This is what kills the US in rare earths, cobalt, gallium, etc. US mines shut down when the price goes down. Sometimes they restart when the price goes up. Sometimes they don't. All this churn makes the business unprofitable in the US.[1] [1] https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-reports-third-quarter-2024-results/ https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-reports-third-...
- llm_trw 2y ago
  You're ignoring the fact that we also don't want oceans of toxic sludge left after the mining. This is not the case in China.
  - Animats 2y ago
    The Mountain Pass mine solved that problem years ago. What they couldn't solve was making money during periods when China cut rare earth prices.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      And china cut the prices by ignoring the environmental impacts of their mines.
    - klooney 2y ago
      If only there was a giant money fountain with a vested interest in keeping mountain pass functional for the long haul.
  - defrost 2y ago
    The by products come after processing the concentrates from mining. The largest non-Chinese supply chain globally is Lynas, concentrates from toxic waste free mining in W.Australia are shipped to Malaysia for processing where pools of low level radioactive waste and associated acids are created as by product. Texas, USA, very much wants in on having "oceans of toxic sludge left after the" processing: The United States Department of Defence will contribute $US288 million ($442m) to develop Seadrift, with a view the construction will be finished by mid-2026. Lynas bought the southern Texas site in July last year from Dow and planned to turn first sod before the end of this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynas https://lynasrareearths.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Lynas-Rare-Earths_Open-House-Presentation-December-7-2023.pdf https://lynasrareearths.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Lynas... The US expansion is funded by a US DoD initiative to secure critical resources for the US.
nradov 2y ago
Germany had a giant, excellent chemicals industry. It has been shrinking due to higher natural gas prices. Natural gas is a crucial input for many bulk chemicals.
dyauspitr 2y ago
I get the engine and transmission tech doesn’t translate over but the vast majority of the chassis, transmission and pretty much everything else stays the same in a car. That being said, having driven my EV for a year or so I somewhat find ICE vehicles gross now. All that sputtering, poisons, jerkiness, continuous maintenance, loudness etc. just feels so primitive. The only place it still makes sense is for situations that require a lot of power like long distance hauling, heavy equipment etc.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  It’s like going back to plastic bags, cups and water bottles. It just feels gross to touch and you can feel getting poisoned.
- Gibbon1 2y ago
  My opinion as well. There is really nothing basically super special about electric vehicles. 90% is just standard commodity automotive tech.
jcfrei 2y ago
Yes but the level of investment the Chinese have poured into battery production and EVs in general is also completely unparalleled. Industrial policy is nothing new for US and EU but just not at that level. To be able to compete with China the West would need to: - Match generous subsidies to companies, not just through banks but at the government level by building entire towns just for battery production. - Making large parts of land uninhabitable for the cost-effective extraction of rare earths. - Suppress wages at factories and engineering bureaus to be able to cost compete in manufacturing. - Dramatically lower cost of energy production (only doable without renewables in the short term). I just don't see any Western government having a strong enough mandate for any of the policy changes required to compete with China. The simpler reaction is just imposing tariffs.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  Western nations have absolutely done this in the past. It’s the reason we are generally the richest and most secure nations in the world. The decision not to do this potentially means we forfeit those advantages for the rest of this century. And China is hugely deploying renewables, which they happen to be able to produce very cheaply due to their industrial policy. The difference is that China is using their fossil fuel resources to make this investment, while the west is using its fossil fuel resources to shove crayons up its nose.
  - lurking15 2y ago
    > while the west is using its fossil fuel resources to shove crayons up its nose what a bunch of empty invective
- fspeech 2y ago
  China has far less farm land per capita compared to the US. Until the majority of excess farm labor are shifted off the land they do not need suppression to keep wages low. They just need to raise mobility, which they have done by building roads and railways.
- rasz 2y ago
  China didnt pour money into battery R&D. We did. Me, you, our parents, everyone with a phone since mid nineties. BYD stared out as a phone battery manufacturer, it took them decades to turn from cheap labor sweatshop into knowledge based company with own ideas and strategy.
MPSFounder 2y ago
China is of no concern to Europe or the US. Most of their tech is stolen or trickles down from innovation elsewhere. It is unlikely China will find success in the US given the sentiment (antiChinese sentiment is rampant in most of the US). Also, there are many legislations in place that would prevent it. I will mention though that the US and Europe need to get their act together. Too slow on EVs (it took an outsider like Tesla to get it going), and there is still too much reluctance to get the ball rolling. I view the best solution as "forcing" the oil giants to innovate in this sector, but given their lobbying prowess, it is highly unlikely. In a highly democratic society, Shell in Europe and Exxon here would be paying their dues in electric infrastructure and battery tech
- Filligree 2y ago
  > Most of their tech is stolen or trickles down from innovation elsewhere. This is how it always works, until it doesn't. Why is everyone so quick to forget that Japan was the exact same way in the 70s and 80s?
  - p_l 2y ago
    Or that's how USA had acted on many areas as recently as Manhattan Project?
- jinpan 2y ago
  > Most of their tech is stolen or trickles down from innovation elsewhere Overheard at a battery conference: western battery suppliers are actually copying (or in your words, stealing) the Chinese electrolyte formulas and other designs. Great artists steal, the US and Europe play the same game.
lazyeye 2y ago
Angela Merkel's legacy has not been good.. https://archive.md/N3RWo https://archive.md/N3RWo
- myspy 2y ago
  What right wing news source is that? They paint a pretty one sided picture here. Some truths but not all. Germany was on its way to be energy independent with wind but that was blocked by Merkel and right leaning governments since 2010. Without that intervention we could be big in wind and having a lot of people work in that sector. Instead they turned back to gas and coal. The dependence on cars and the incompetence to get excellent on software are a huge problem here in Germany. But the educated part of the people here saw that coming. The will to change is what is dragging us down in Germany.
  - lazyeye 2y ago
    What left-wing ideology is that? If wind was so promising (providing cheap energy at scale 24/7) nobody would turn away from it. Maybe it was "blocked" because it wasn't working?
singularity2001 2y ago
What I find puzzling is that around 10 years ago Audi and VW committed fully to electric vehicles, investing $100 billion(?). So why do people now claim they missed the boat on EV development?
- M95D 2y ago
  - Because 10y ago was already too late. - Because they can invest and still fail. - Because a press release and actual money spent on reasearch are two very different things.

RandomThoughts3 2y ago

But focusing only on manufacturing is missing half of the picture. China is using for batteries the same playbook they used for PVs. They are spending a lot of money to hire all the top researchers they can in the field. Truth is they are years ahead of most battery manufacturers in R&D.

MoreMoore 2y ago

Germany is IBM. Existing industries are too valuable and influential, and shifting something as entrenched as German auto industries is an expensive, difficult endeavour that isn't immediately as profitable as the existing business. At least maybe we'll get to stick around as business consultants and selling mainframes to a handful of companies convinced by "nobody was ever fired for buying German".

formerly_proven 2y ago
People like to say the US is a car-dependent country (because you can't go anywhere without a car). However, germany is the most car-dependent country (because it can't go anywhere without making cars).

amelius 2y ago

The world knows how to make good cars now. The EU has to move on to the next problem if it wants to stay ahead.

Animats 2y ago
> The world knows how to make good cars now. Companies can forget how. Stellantis (which owns Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Fiat, and some other forgettable car brands) forgot how. The CEO was fired on December 1st, 2024. His strategy had been to crank prices way up, add on post-sale service charges, and get the biggest bonus in automotive executive pay history (not counting Musk's current litigated bonus.) Sales went down. Way down. Chrysler now makes only minivans. Overpriced Jeeps are piling up in dealer lots. The "mild hybrid" power train, with 21 miles of electric mileage, is a dud. The brand image is in the tank. Nobody wears a Stellantis T-shirt. The US has 3 million unsold cars sitting on dealer lots. Some have been there for over a year. How many will still start?
- BarbaPeru 2y ago
  Forgettable as Citroen and Peugeot, for example?
  - GuB-42 2y ago
    I think GP means forgettable in the US. Here is the brands from the Wikipedia article: - Abarth - Alfa Romeo - Chrysler - Citroën - Dodge - DS Automobiles - Fiat - Jeep - Lancia - Maserati - Opel - Peugeot - Ram Trucks - Vauxhall None of them I would call "forgettable". Most of these brands have been there for more than a century. The only ones more recent than that are Abarth, DS and Ram. DS and Ram refer to iconic vehicles by Citroën and Dodge respectively and lately turned into their own brands.

ghaff 2y ago

>Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Which worked so well for Japan that you had Nobel economic laureates promoting it. </s> I'm being a bit sarcastic of course but MITA was seen as such the future in Japan--until it wasn't.

marcosdumay 2y ago
Industrial policy will bring you up to a point, and apparently, no further. Anyway, it was wildly successful in Japan, Germany, and the US. Up until the time it stopped working. It has been arguably less successful in China, but still good enough to create massive change.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I don't really disagree. You need, sorry, effective capitalism and a legal structure underneath the policy but that doesn't replace entrepreneurship and broader cultural norms.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    The problem is that industrial policy seems to be incompatible with effective capitalism and universal rule of law to some extent. It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why. But it never seems to be a positive thing after some point, instead, it seems to have very negative impacts on more developed countries.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why It's good at the initial stages and unproductive later on. The problem is that when you need to remove it is also when its recipients are most powerful.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        There's probably reasonable disagreement on the extent of anti-trust enforcement etc. in developed economies. We may see a case study in the coming years.

Animats 2y ago

> Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Yes. This is what kills the US in rare earths, cobalt, gallium, etc. US mines shut down when the price goes down. Sometimes they restart when the price goes up. Sometimes they don't. All this churn makes the business unprofitable in the US.[1] [1] https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-reports-third-quarter-2024-results/ https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-reports-third-...

llm_trw 2y ago
You're ignoring the fact that we also don't want oceans of toxic sludge left after the mining. This is not the case in China.
- Animats 2y ago
  The Mountain Pass mine solved that problem years ago. What they couldn't solve was making money during periods when China cut rare earth prices.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    And china cut the prices by ignoring the environmental impacts of their mines.
  - klooney 2y ago
    If only there was a giant money fountain with a vested interest in keeping mountain pass functional for the long haul.
- defrost 2y ago
  The by products come after processing the concentrates from mining. The largest non-Chinese supply chain globally is Lynas, concentrates from toxic waste free mining in W.Australia are shipped to Malaysia for processing where pools of low level radioactive waste and associated acids are created as by product. Texas, USA, very much wants in on having "oceans of toxic sludge left after the" processing: The United States Department of Defence will contribute $US288 million ($442m) to develop Seadrift, with a view the construction will be finished by mid-2026. Lynas bought the southern Texas site in July last year from Dow and planned to turn first sod before the end of this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynas https://lynasrareearths.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Lynas-Rare-Earths_Open-House-Presentation-December-7-2023.pdf https://lynasrareearths.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Lynas... The US expansion is funded by a US DoD initiative to secure critical resources for the US.

nradov 2y ago

Germany had a giant, excellent chemicals industry. It has been shrinking due to higher natural gas prices. Natural gas is a crucial input for many bulk chemicals.

dyauspitr 2y ago

I get the engine and transmission tech doesn’t translate over but the vast majority of the chassis, transmission and pretty much everything else stays the same in a car. That being said, having driven my EV for a year or so I somewhat find ICE vehicles gross now. All that sputtering, poisons, jerkiness, continuous maintenance, loudness etc. just feels so primitive. The only place it still makes sense is for situations that require a lot of power like long distance hauling, heavy equipment etc.

dzhiurgis 2y ago
It’s like going back to plastic bags, cups and water bottles. It just feels gross to touch and you can feel getting poisoned.
Gibbon1 2y ago
My opinion as well. There is really nothing basically super special about electric vehicles. 90% is just standard commodity automotive tech.

jcfrei 2y ago

Yes but the level of investment the Chinese have poured into battery production and EVs in general is also completely unparalleled. Industrial policy is nothing new for US and EU but just not at that level. To be able to compete with China the West would need to: - Match generous subsidies to companies, not just through banks but at the government level by building entire towns just for battery production. - Making large parts of land uninhabitable for the cost-effective extraction of rare earths. - Suppress wages at factories and engineering bureaus to be able to cost compete in manufacturing. - Dramatically lower cost of energy production (only doable without renewables in the short term). I just don't see any Western government having a strong enough mandate for any of the policy changes required to compete with China. The simpler reaction is just imposing tariffs.

matthewdgreen 2y ago
Western nations have absolutely done this in the past. It’s the reason we are generally the richest and most secure nations in the world. The decision not to do this potentially means we forfeit those advantages for the rest of this century. And China is hugely deploying renewables, which they happen to be able to produce very cheaply due to their industrial policy. The difference is that China is using their fossil fuel resources to make this investment, while the west is using its fossil fuel resources to shove crayons up its nose.
- lurking15 2y ago
  > while the west is using its fossil fuel resources to shove crayons up its nose what a bunch of empty invective
fspeech 2y ago
China has far less farm land per capita compared to the US. Until the majority of excess farm labor are shifted off the land they do not need suppression to keep wages low. They just need to raise mobility, which they have done by building roads and railways.
rasz 2y ago
China didnt pour money into battery R&D. We did. Me, you, our parents, everyone with a phone since mid nineties. BYD stared out as a phone battery manufacturer, it took them decades to turn from cheap labor sweatshop into knowledge based company with own ideas and strategy.

MPSFounder 2y ago

China is of no concern to Europe or the US. Most of their tech is stolen or trickles down from innovation elsewhere. It is unlikely China will find success in the US given the sentiment (antiChinese sentiment is rampant in most of the US). Also, there are many legislations in place that would prevent it. I will mention though that the US and Europe need to get their act together. Too slow on EVs (it took an outsider like Tesla to get it going), and there is still too much reluctance to get the ball rolling. I view the best solution as "forcing" the oil giants to innovate in this sector, but given their lobbying prowess, it is highly unlikely. In a highly democratic society, Shell in Europe and Exxon here would be paying their dues in electric infrastructure and battery tech

Filligree 2y ago
> Most of their tech is stolen or trickles down from innovation elsewhere. This is how it always works, until it doesn't. Why is everyone so quick to forget that Japan was the exact same way in the 70s and 80s?
- p_l 2y ago
  Or that's how USA had acted on many areas as recently as Manhattan Project?
jinpan 2y ago
> Most of their tech is stolen or trickles down from innovation elsewhere Overheard at a battery conference: western battery suppliers are actually copying (or in your words, stealing) the Chinese electrolyte formulas and other designs. Great artists steal, the US and Europe play the same game.

lazyeye 2y ago

Angela Merkel's legacy has not been good.. https://archive.md/N3RWo https://archive.md/N3RWo

myspy 2y ago
What right wing news source is that? They paint a pretty one sided picture here. Some truths but not all. Germany was on its way to be energy independent with wind but that was blocked by Merkel and right leaning governments since 2010. Without that intervention we could be big in wind and having a lot of people work in that sector. Instead they turned back to gas and coal. The dependence on cars and the incompetence to get excellent on software are a huge problem here in Germany. But the educated part of the people here saw that coming. The will to change is what is dragging us down in Germany.
- lazyeye 2y ago
  What left-wing ideology is that? If wind was so promising (providing cheap energy at scale 24/7) nobody would turn away from it. Maybe it was "blocked" because it wasn't working?

singularity2001 2y ago

What I find puzzling is that around 10 years ago Audi and VW committed fully to electric vehicles, investing $100 billion(?). So why do people now claim they missed the boat on EV development?

M95D 2y ago
- Because 10y ago was already too late. - Because they can invest and still fail. - Because a press release and actual money spent on reasearch are two very different things.