Europa erfährt eine unangenehme Wahrheit über die lokale Batterieproduktion
https://insideevs.com/news/788575/europe-ev-battery-production-uncomfortable-truth/
Von homo_balcanicus
Europa erfährt eine unangenehme Wahrheit über die lokale Batterieproduktion
https://insideevs.com/news/788575/europe-ev-battery-production-uncomfortable-truth/
Von homo_balcanicus
14 Kommentare
More like a an uncomfortable truth about general industry and manufacturing.
EU is living off its past industry. No matter if it’s batteries or anything else, building new industrial and manufacturing efforts in Europe is rarely the way to go. The old standing industry gets used until it’s not worth it anymore, but after that, there isnt much investment coming in.
Because you can’t build a isolated factory and expect things to just work out.
Industries are build on a massive ecosystem of suppliers, services, research, etc.
If you don’t build the ecosystem, your factory is gonna be dependent on China and lack the technical expertise and suppliers to innovate and improve production in quality, quantity and/or price.
I think most of EU knows full well. So does the US and many other more advanced countries. It’s why they outsourced that and pretended we are green.
Another bit of comfortable truth: A huge chunk of European cell and battery material production is based in Hungary. Asian manufacturers are investing in the EU equivalent of the American South to take advantage of cheap labor and corrupt governance.
I am not sure what is so “unexpected” with this lesson. Surely it was expected and will be dealt with in time. Europe is on the right track and no one expects trouble free journey.
We need to stop.buying from china
And build our own. It is possible but very very hard.
Price of lithium has dropped to fraction of what was projected and the price of batteries from China with it. Much less of the cost is now the raw materials. Also local lithium projects are in a bit of a limbo. And all the alternative technologies became economically unviable.
I know electric cars pollute less than gasoline cars on a global scale when you take everything into account. But if the battery factory happens to be near you, then the situation is far, far worse for you.
If you want to compete with China, you better accept the same working conditions, living conditions, pay, and rates of cancer as Chinese factory workers already do.
0% Taxes on locally manufactured products for 10 years, and a 15 year energy price guarantee would be a start
An Europe without industry is a Europe that doesn’t pollute as much as before. Isn’t that the main goal?
In the end all manufacturing will be almost fully automated.
I helped design a kitchen cabinet line 15 years ago that took over from an existing line.
400 workers => 4
2 shifts 5 days => 3 shifts 7 days
About 150% output per shift
We are mainly learning that we missed the time to start the endeavor in the first place. Ultimately a result of our legacy automobile production chain, that has also been protected for too long, e. g. by not pushing forward more aggressively with environmental regulation.
We have long passed the point of no return. There is no question if these batteries need to be produced, only who is gonna do it. EU countries will soon have to decide if they want to invest a hundred billion or Euro or more from taxpayer money into building the supply chains, or let all European auto makers slide into irrelevance and obscurity.
If donut lab can actually deliver on what is promised in the marketing materials, on scale, they will absolutely turn around the battery manufacturing in a heartbeat. Let’s see if it’s just an elaborate marketing rug pull or they actually have made something truly revolutionary. They are slowly releasing test data, and it’s looking very promising. Following them with huge interest, they release new tests every Monday, and even made a website for all the skeptics.
All made in Finland.
Governments never learn. In 1963 the UK Government decided to build a car factory in Linwood Scotland to boost local employment by moving production from the Midlands.
They totally ignored the fact that all the infrastructure (parts suppliers etc) was in the Midlands not Scotland.
Of course, the project failed.