Ripped this from reddit, but mostly to share this context in tandem. It's about 50 min long, so could be a good podcast-esque listen.
Not sure exactly what dominance means here? China seems to be ahead on battery production but Those subsidies go to companies buying EV cars to boost govt sales figures. Instead of actually using the cars to grow the market in rent/share EV, they're left abandoned and the companies return to their angel investors for more funds without any return - by far the largest being the CCP to reach their goal of EV dominance. Surprise, surprise the sales are dodgy as fuck and manipulated by the government. Between 2009 and 2021, the Chinese government poured more than $130 billion worth of subsidies into the EV market
I think dominance means [government] spending here. China's tactic very much seems to be throwing money at the wall and seeing what sticks ,'cuz why not. With the rate they are seeking to soak up ownership of the world's lithium mines, they don't have to worry about supplying whoever they are lending to. If a company strikes gold, then they are set for mass production as fast as the CCP wants them to be... but who knows when that will be. But, hey, maybe the U.S.'s targeted approach by lending to Ford will produce results. The U.S. is building out access to it's own large lithium deposit [see: Thacker Pass Mine in Nevada], so there shouldn't be a lithium supply issue in Ford's future... Assuming they right the ship on their current supply and demand issues which is definitely not a personal gripe.
I was rather taken aback when I figured out how brazen China's take on capitalism was. 1) Get a massive loan from the government 2) Buy a bunch of Western shit 3) Sell it on eBay at below cost 4) Profit There's a step (5) in there where you do the song'n'dance in front of the CCP about how your venture wasn't profitable, too bad, so sad, and then you fuck off and do the same thing under another name but it's almost a formality from what I can tell. It's like this: here's an extremely technical page for a device I have several of. It's a servo controller. It's hard core. It's Japanese. And it's about $2800. And here's a warehouse in China selling the same thing for about $150 with tax. Cost on that $2800 item is prolly $1900? But since we've shipped generations of technical equipment and machine tools to China for scrap, the used part is like $100 so the new part is only $50 over that. Now - sometimes they counterfeit this shit. I bought some Yaskawa cables off eBay. From Yaskawa? They're like $300 ea. Off eBay? They're $30... but they'll write you and say 'do you want them in green or orange' and you say 'yaskawa doesn't make them in green or orange' and they say 'answer the question.' (green for power, orange for servo, thanks for asking, by the way I need another three pair). And sometimes they'll say 'hey so we stuck a random-ass label on these, they say 'prototype' and have a made-up company name, if it bugs you take them off with hand sanitizer, they're necessary to get through customs.' But I've plugged those servo drivers into the Internet, they're legit, their serial numbers are genuine, they are the real McCoy (three new, three used, one of which is dead and I need to replace, but it's $150). And the price difference between the $5k/channel I should be paying and the $400/channel I am paying is coming directly from the Chinese Communist Party. There is something utterly delicious about enterprising gray market criminal enterprises subsidizing American manufacturing directly out of Mao's pocketbook. This seems to be the way Chinese capitalism tends to go: blow a lot of party money so you can get ratfucked by the Triads. Their lithium ventures are going to go the same, only different. Depending on how you count, the CIA has fomented between two and four coups in Bolivia alone since 1960. Any mining deals between China and the Bolivian salt flats are subject to the machinations of the Divide. China, for its part, hasn't pulled off similar skullduggery in... a long time. If anything, I think this is just another in a long line of examples where Western manufacturers and businesses pivot from "buy cheap things from China" to "compete against cheap things from China." It's been a long time coming. Everyone got fat and happy building a middle class in the People's Republic but that time is done and now you whine for subsidies from your own governments.
LOL. In the market for electric air pumps and cell signal boosters (unrelated), and boy-golly-gee eBay has some wild discounts from suppliers. 'OEM' products are marked down by 75% from very highly rated companies boasting very similar marketing for said products. One guess for where 'Country of Origin/Manufacturing' is on these products. A couple items not listed in the article I linked (due to recency) was Iran's recent discovery of lithium, who - and I'm no expert - I would think be more amenable to trade relations to China due to a 'New Silk Road' deal in 2019. That's only from a cursory glance.... it also seems like Taliban might stop ghosting China's $10bn 'U up?' texts about the deposit found in Afghanistan. So Silk Road 2: Electric Boogaloo doesn't look that far-fetched. Sidenote, thanks for the book rec.I was rather taken aback when I figured out how brazen China's take on capitalism was.