EU urged to form battery raw materials club with US

Transport industry leaders have urged the EU to form a ‘raw materials club’ with the US to ensure a stable battery supply chain.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) issued the call on March 17, the day after the European Commission published a longawaited Critical Raw Materials Act and Net-Zero Industry Act.

The draft raw materials regulations include an updated version of the EU’s list of critical raw materials and defines, for the first time, a list of strategic raw materials vital to powering the bloc’s green tech agenda, including domestic battery manufacturing for EVs and energy storage systems.

ACEA broadly welcomed the proposals but questioned the “potential effectiveness and overall coherence” of the proposals with the EU’s green agenda.

The body said more work needed to be done on the concept of establishing a raw materials club in conjunction with the US.

Meanwhile Recharge, the European association for advanced rechargeable and lithium batteries, said on March 16 the Commission’s proposals could become a game-changer for competitiveness in the battery value chain.

However, Recharge general manager Claude Chanson said it was crucial for the Commission to deal with “incoherencies” between the new proposals and existing EU laws that continue to delay investments and impede the bloc’s Green Deal.

The Commission said on December 9 it had concluded talks with Chile to unlock investment potential for supplies of lithium for Europe’s batteries manufacturing market.

Last March, EU leaders and battery industry chiefs agreed to expand funding to support gigafactory projects and speed-up permitting processes, amid fears that investors are being lured away from Europe by lucrative tax breaks and incentives in the US and Asia.

According to new analysis published on March 6, nearly 70% of Europe’s overall planned pipeline of lithium ion battery cells production capacity by 2030 is at risk of being delayed, scaled down or cancelled, according to stark new analysis published on March 6.

The study by clean transport campaign group Transport & Environment indicated around a fifth (285GWh) of Europe’s 1.8TWh expected EV battery factories potential is at ‘high risk’ and a further 52% (around 910GWh) at ‘medium risk’.

Overall, 68% of the potential battery cell supply in Europe is at risk if further action is not taken — and the EU will be unable to satisfy its battery demand without imports from foreign rivals, T&E said.

T&E’s senior director for vehicles and e-mobility Julia Poliscanova said: “EU battery manufacturing is caught in the crossfire between America and China. Europe must act or risk losing it all.

“A green industrial policy focused on batteries with EU-wide support for scaling up production is urgently needed to react to US subsidies and China’s years of dominance.”

The study increased pressure on EU leaders following crisis proposals unveiled in December 2022 to avert a potential investments meltdown for European gigafactory plans, amid fears cash is instead flowing into projects in the US and Asia.

T&E’s analysis was derived from publicly avail- able information assessing 50 gigafactories planned for Europe by 2030 — based on the projects’ maturity, financing, permits, secured factory sites and project companies’ links to the US.

On top of China’s dominance in EV supply chains the US Inflation Reduction Act, which is expected to pour at least $150 billion into battery components and metals manufactured in the US or ‘friendly countries’, is “changing the rules of the game fast”, the study said.

In terms of global investment into lithium ion batteries tracked by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Europe’s share dropped from 41% in 2021 to a meagre 2% in 2022, while investment in China and the US continued to grow, according to T&E.

Germany, Hungary, Spain, Italy and the UK stand to lose the most if batterymakers change their plans, according to the study.

AM Batteries is teaming up with Amperex Technology to develop solvent-free electrode manufacturing technology for lithium ion cell production, the firms announced on April 5.

The partnership will further develop AMB’s dry-electrode fabrication technology with the lithium battery manufacturing expertise of Amperex, from which Chinese battery giant CATL was spun off in 2012.

Amperex is now owned by Japan’s TDK Corporation.

The firms said they want to tackle critical challenges facing the Li battery sector including its heavy carbon footprint, energy consumption and high infrastructure costs derived from existing solvent evaporation process used for electrode fabrication.

US-based AMB says it has developed an electrostatic spray-deposition technique to produce key battery electrode components sustainably.

Dry cathode and anode electrode materials are electrostatically charged and deposited on to metal-foil current collectors, which are then processed to their final state without the use of toxic solvents, the company claims.

AMB’s CEO Yan Wang said: “One of the fundamental problems for battery manufacturers is refining manufacturing techniques to remove the solvents used in wet-coating of electrodes.

“Our dry-electrode manufacturing technology allows for the coating of lithium ion battery electrodes without the need for any solvents or energy-intensive evaporation.”