CATL, BYD, and Tesla expose Europe's EV battery 'reshoring': only China and Korea can build them

European governments are hoping to "reshore" the EV and battery industries, to reduce dependency on Asian factories and bring back manufacturing jobs.

But the EV industry was never in Europe, nor in North America, at either the scale or the levels of efficiency and engineering expertise that we observe in Chinese or South Korean plants.

CATL is the world's biggest battery maker, and employs over 21,000 engineers and scientists across its R&D departments alone. Industry experts admit that to compete with Chinese or Korean battery makers, over a thousand key engineering processes must be replicated.

Resources and links:

Bloomberg, Europe’s Big Battery Ambitions Are Failing, and China Is Benefiting

Reuters, Sweden's Northvolt files for bankruptcy, in blow to Europe's EV ambitions

New York Times, British Battery Start-Up Files for Bankruptcy

Wired, The Collapse of the UK’s Electric Vehicle Champion

Inside EVs, ‘He Doesn’t Know How To Make A Battery’: China’s CATL Chief Blasts Elon Musk

Reuters Exclusive: China battery giant CATL would build US plant if Trump allows it

Reshoring, Nearshoring, and Friendshoring

Visual Capitalist, Visualizing China’s Dominance in Battery Manufacturing (2022-2027P)

The Top 10 EV battery companies

Closing scene, Li River, Guangxi province

[FAFOrednickinsell]

21, 000 people… working on just R&D is mind boggling

[cartalkers]

Simply the best educational and informative program about China that is on the internet.

[StipanRamon]

Best Economy Programme in YouTube. Nobody even comes close. BE GOOD!

[hotlucky]

The UK has Empire Nostalgia. They do struggle with irrelevancy.

[paulginsberg]

Absolutely the most detailed and researched presentations on China I have found anywhere. Much appreciate the objective fact based reporting. Excellent analysis.

[brankourosevic]

Your shows are quite educational and informative. From Belgrade, Serbia

[UPdan]

We really look forward for these. It cuts through the media waste. Real information from you.

[paulmatters]

Not a word of this in the stenographer Australian MSM. Outstanding report. Thank you.

[telahunbelachew]

I’m mesmerized by your presentation quality. Where are those whose job it is to figure this out in the first place? Thank you for shining a light on what is going on in the world.

[hernehill]

Kevin knows how to get to the point, explain how things and relationships work, provide data and references, and not waste our time. Thanks, Kevin.

[NewVisionAfrica-wqsw]

The only and only channel I trust as a source for business trends, can't express my appreciation enough

[kenwang]

Great reporting that you don’t see in the mainstream news!

[Davecooperify]

These failures on the part of "the west" and successes of "the east" are indicative of the inseparability of politics and economics. In the UK we had EV's in cmmerial use, primarily a ubiquitous "milk float" (some still doing milk rounds into the 1990's) but also a 'Bedford Elctric Van'.. The Bedford EV was used as a fleet vehicle by the Public Services Agency (PSA) a branch of UK Govt. and the Greater London Council (GLC)) built by Lucas Industries.using the Bedford CF (mfd by Vauxhall Motors) as base vehicle. The UK also had one of the leading producers of domestic Batteries (Mullard Electric Ltd) who produced the famous Duracell brand and of ocurse there were homegrown manufacturers of lead/acid batteries) In addition, there were developments and prototype ideas in the making up until ... wait for it ...

1979 and PM Margaret Thatcher. WTF??!!!!

The election of Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party in 1979 heralded the de-industriaisation of the UK. Her openly stated goals were to turn Britain into a 'service economy' and to demolish the power of British working class (i.e. the trade unions and organised labour). Those goals were political and compounded an already catastrophic decade, or so, of under-investment and bad management in UK industry.

The elephant in the room has not been dealt with to this day. This is the "short term 'profits before people & purpose' mindset". That mindset is compounded in the US by their simultaneously pathological reourse to war when their greed is not enough.

[randywalekr]

I just like to say thanks once in a while for your work on these episodes. I only wish more people understood...

[drjm]

Makes me think about "Stealing technology". Sure technology can be stolen, but to invest the money, supply chains, scientists/ engineers, processes and infrastructure and then making the whole thing work is not so simple is it?

[jjsmith]

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Kevin! thank you for all of your great informative videos

[IanFong-mtyp]

Happy and safe holidays from Canada Kevin! Be Good.

[MASMIWA]

Where are the Japanese? Toyota went off on the hydrogen trail and only recently resigned itself to follow the crowd in eV. Toyota is using BYD's hybrid system in liu of their own hybrid design that they have used for years. Chinese EV are selling well in Japan. Nissan is about to go under.

[donkeykong]

21000 are likely all PhDs, that's likely more than number of US PhDs...lol

[ledcityusa]

It's always an eye-opening report. Thank you