Report: US may undercut China on batteries by 2030. The US could produce cheaper EV batteries than China by 2030, according to a new report. But that depends on Biden administration policies staying in place. The Inflation Reduction Act has already led to a “surge” in battery investments.

4 comments

1. Batteries are electricity which is like magnetism which doesn’t work under water so drill baby drill?

2. What a joke though. As if China wouldn’t be able to cut prices through 2030. And the anodes are still a big bottleneck.

3. I believe if you look a little closer, you will find that a significant portion of those battery makers are, in fact, Chinese. And I know from other discussions where people claimed that Chinese companies cannot get IRA funding that this is a false statement and that many of the battery companies getting IRA money are indeed Chinese in origin and that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity in the United States and the IRA is not an exception to this legal fact.

   What confuses people is that the IRA does indeed allow companies to be exlcuded from funding if they can be demonstrated to have actual connection to foreign militaries from a list of hostile countries that includes China, Iran, Russia and North Korea. However, this is mis-interpreted to mean that all Chinese companies are forbidden from recieving IRA funds and that is not true at all. If it were true, it would be an instance of permitting discrimination against an ethnicity and that is clearly not allowed in the United States. The fact is that Chinese companies both can and are setting up shop in the US and there is no legal means of prohibiting that except to ban EVs through Congress. The executive branch does not have that authority.

   Cheap batteries and EVs are coming to the US via China despite any claims Trump cares to make or wild behaviors he engages in. Trump can attempt to manipulate international trade as the executive has broad powers over international trade agreements, but that’s where the power of the executive ends as far as this issue is concerned and that fact that he has already shown his cards means they’re useless to play. Once Chinese set up shop in the US, he’s helpless to do anything. People ascribing super powers to Trump and insisting that a dictatorial rule is inevitable are jumping the gun. Trump will probably witness an enormous surge in EV sales during his presidency despite anything he says because he is the one who has his hands tied. It’s quite likely he, himself, is unaware of how weak his position is but more likely he knows he’s bluffing and doesn’t care because that’s how he rolls. What difference would it make?

4. China for the win!!

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