this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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[โ€“] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Volkswagen has just opened a battery factory in Germany, which is able to produce something like 10% of car batteries needed in the EU. There are others as well, like Northvolt. So if China cuts off batteries, then there would still be a car production in Europe and within a few years it would be back to normal. Obviously there are also countries like South Korea producing batteries. However the EU has some strong train manufacturers and the like, which can also reduce the demand for cars, which is another great alternative.

Rare earths are worse though.

[โ€“] Delascas@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[โ€“] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Most of the assets have been bought out by Lyten. It really does not matter who owns the companies.

[โ€“] Kjell@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

Northvolt could never ramp up the production and Lyten has some issues which might cause Northvolt to go bankrupt again.

During the autumn, when Lyten started to hire people, they violated the money laundering laws.

Some weeks ago Lyten had not raised the necessary funds for completing the purchase.

[โ€“] bossito@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Rare Earths are just another reason to shout "why the hell are we delaying the Mercosur agreement that we desperately need!?".

[โ€“] Benchamoneh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Hopefully sodium batteries will help alleviate some of the rare earth dependencies since sodium is quite readily available in large quantities

[โ€“] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 days ago

So is lithium to be honest. Refining it is just a really dirty process.