Fraun­hofer FFB and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mün­ster have ana­lyzed China’s dom­i­nance in the bat­tery sup­ply chain in a study. Chi­na con­trols almost the entire val­ue chain of lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies, from raw mate­r­i­al extrac­tion to pro­duc­tion. Europe is almost entire­ly depen­dent on imports, which makes it vul­ner­a­ble to geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions. Raw mate­ri­als such as lithi­um, cobalt and nick­el are cru­cial for elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty, but only a few coun­tries have suf­fi­cient resources. Europe’s depen­dence on Chi­na could jeop­ar­dize the future of elec­tric mobil­i­ty, while Europe and the US try to gain more con­trol by acquir­ing mines and refiner­ies. Source: https://www.ffb.fraunhofer.de/de/news/Pressemitteilungen/Chinas_Dominanz_in_der_Batterielieferkette.html